Lies, distortions, half-truths, and propaganda — all expected from every side during an election year. What is unexpected, however, is just how much more propaganda there has been aimed at third parties, especially the Green Party.
The Democratic National Committee announced recently that they were spending half a million dollars on YouTube and Instagram advertising attacking Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee for president. The ad shows former president Donald Trump at a rally in Philadelphia, where he states: “And I like her also, Jill Stein, I like her very much. You know why? She takes 100% from them.” The ad then shows text which reads: “A vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Trump. Trump knows it. Now you know it, too.” In their announcement, the Democrats claim that, “In 2016, Stein helped Trump win the election. She won 132,000 votes in the decisive swing states — Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania — while Trump’s margin of victory was just 77,000 votes in those same states.” The implication here is that had Jill Stein not been on the ballot then her supporters would have voted for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Trump would have lost those swing states and thus lost the presidency.
There is one major problem with that implication. The Democrats assume that voters who cast their ballots for Jill Stein would have switched their vote to Hillary Clinton had Stein not been on the ballot. According to CBS News exit polls, however, only 25% of Stein voters would have voted for Clinton had they only been given the option of either Clinton or Trump. 14% said they would have voted for Trump, and 61% would have not voted at all. That means that out of the 132,000 votes cast for Stein in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, only 33,000 would have been cast for Clinton — far short of the over 77,000 votes needed for Clinton to have won the election. So no, Jill Stein did not cause Hillary Clinton’s loss. She did, however, assist in the election of down-ballot Democrats and subsequently prevented the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. According to Kevin Sanchez in a 2021 article:
The Jill Stein-Ajamu Baraka ticket received 6,465 votes in the state of New Hampshire. Down that same ballot, Democratic challenger Maggie Hassan was competing against Republican incumbent Kelly Ayotte in an extremely close race for the United States Senate. Hassan’s victory was razor-thin — a mere 1,017 votes. Thanks to Morning Consult public opinion data, we know that Stein supporters preferred down-ballot Democrats over Republicans by a 3-to-1 margin. And thanks to CBS News exit polling, we know that 61% of Stein voters said they would not have voted at all if they had to choose between Trump and Clinton.
So, if Stein had withdrawn her name and most of her left-leaning voting bloc had stayed home on Election Day, that would have subtracted more than enough votes from Hassan’s tally to cost her her pivotal Senate seat.
The following year, the “skinny repeal” of Obamacare was defeated 51 to 49, with then-Vice President Mike Pence itching to break a tie. Although we may remember Senator John McCain’s grandiose thumbs-down, if Kelly Ayotte had been sitting in the chair that Hassan currently occupies, it would have meant saying “goodbye” to Obama’s signature legislative achievement.
Not only did Jill Stein not cost the Democrats the 2016 election, but she actually saved one of their seats in the Senate and their signature legislative achievement up to that point. As for the 2024 presidential election, polling actually suggests that Jill Stein hurts Donald Trump more than Kamala Harris, as Harris’ lead over Trump expands with the inclusion of Dr. Stein on the ballot and narrows when Dr. Stein is excluded from the ballot.
The worry about “spoiler” candidates could of course be completely put to rest if the Democrats passed a key bit of election reform advocated by the Green Party since its inception: ranked choice voting. This is whereby voters have the option to rank all candidates in order of preference. If your first choice doesn’t have a chance to win, your vote is counted towards your second choice, and so forth until a candidate reaches a majority. In this system, candidates are encouraged to work together in order to secure the second-choice votes of their most ideologically similar opponent’s supporters and gain a majority of votes, rather than sling mud in the hopes of gaining a plurality of votes. This makes for a much healthier democracy, which Democrats claim they are protecting by suing to have the Green Party removed from the ballot time and time again.
Let’s assume that Donald Trump is right for once and 100% of Jill Stein’s votes would otherwise go to Kamala Harris if Stein were absent. Should the Democratic Party spend their energy and resources having the Green Party removed from ballots and airing attack ads, or should they spend their time trying to appeal to Green voters who feel alienated by the Biden/Harris administration’s support for the genocide of Palestinians, record oil drilling, and draconian immigration policies? Jill Stein is the favorite candidate among American Muslim voters, polling at 42.3%, compared to Harris’ 41%. Despite this fact, and despite needing to win the swing state of Michigan (which has one of the largest Muslim and Arab American populations in the United States), Harris has indicated that she will not change course from Biden’s support for Palestinian genocide. If Harris loses Michigan, and subsequently the White House, it won’t be the fault of anti-genocide voters casting their ballots for the anti-genocide candidate; it will be the fault of Harris for not being the anti-genocide candidate herself.
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