Why Jill Stein is running on a third-party ticket... for a third time

The Green Party candidate weighs in on her campaign's anti-war messaging and the “Uncommitted” movement

Dr. Jill Stein, the determined physician and activist, insists her 2024 presidential bid won’t hurt President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. A three-time Green Party nominee, Stein dismisses the bipartisan scare tactics suggesting votes for third-party candidates are actually votes for Donald Trump.

“This is part of their talking points,” she tells Zivvy News. “Both parties maintain that they own your vote, [that] you're supposed to be just part of the faithful boots on the ground for this political establishment that's throwing you under the bus. If you want to be the foot soldier to the crisis in your life and those who are causing it, yeah, sure, you owe them your vote.”

During her 2016 campaign, Stein, now 73, championed the disenchanted voters sick of the everlasting “lesser of two evils” conundrum. Now, in 2024, her campaign has a new centerpiece: anti-war messaging. As the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas conflicts rage on, U.S. foreign policy—and its domestic echoes—have taken the front seat in voter concerns.

A bold move in Stein’s strategy was courting Abdullah Hammoud, the Muslim, Lebanese-American mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, as a potential running mate. Dearborn, a vibrant hub of Arab-Americans, stands as a testament to diverse American identities. However, Hammoud falls short of the constitutional age requirement by a single year.

Age, in fact, is the hot topic this election cycle. With Trump at 78 and Biden at 81, concerns over stamina are unrelenting. On Inauguration Day, either would become the oldest president in U.S. history. Yet, for Stein’s campaign, Hammoud’s youthful vigor isn't the primary issue. Despite his alignment with Stein on key issues like U.S. relations with Israel and the Arab world, it’s his influence in the “Uncommitted” movement that truly stirs the pot.

This movement, a force in the Greater Detroit Metropolitan Area, allows voters to select “uncommitted” on Democratic Primary ballots, expressing their dissatisfaction with Biden. Having secured 37 pledged delegates to Biden’s 3904, the movement underscores significant unrest within Democratic and Left-leaning Independent circles, particularly over Biden’s stance on Gaza.

Stein shares this concern. “Simply to be uncommitted… essentially, it silences that whole community,” she says. “And in the big picture here, the goal is not only to punish Biden. The goal has to be to rescue a million people's lives at risk right now that the UN says will starve in the next month alone, and then it will go from there. And the whole thing may very well blow up. So it may go way beyond Palestinians. It may be Israelis, and then it may be the whole region, and it may be Lebanon.”

A hypothetical Stein-Hammoud ticket, featuring a Jewish President and a Muslim Vice President, would be historic. Yet, as of now, Stein’s running mate remains a mystery, to be unveiled at the Green Party’s National Convention in August.