Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and former Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant rallied Tuesday in Seattle, amid Democratic fears that even a small vote for Stein could be enough to tip the election to Donald Trump.
Sawant gave a blistering speech, assailing the two-party system, but focusing her ire on the Democratic Party and Vice President Kamala Harris.
"Kamala Harris deserves to lose 1,000 times over," Sawant said, blaming her for the deaths of tens of thousands of people in Gaza.
Stein focused her remarks largely on the war in Gaza, calling for an end to U.S. arms support to Israel.
"If you vote for either of the genocide candidates you are endorsing genocide, you are affirming it, you are enabling it," she said. "Every vote for our campaign is a shot across the bow of the empire."
Speaking to about 150 people at Washington Hall in the Central District, Sawant accused Harris of being "more pliable and controllable" by Wall Street interests.
She urged the audience to support Stein's efforts in Michigan, one of seven razor-close swing states that likely will determine the election. Michigan, which has a large Arab American population often critical of the Biden administration's support of Israel, "has to be the focus of our leverage," Sawant said.
Sawant, a leftist force on the City Council for a decade, admitted the obvious — that Stein has no chance to win.
Harris, Sawant said, was slipping in the polls, but "This race is still too close to call. We should not get complacent."
At a rally in Michigan last week, Sawant called the state "ground zero to punish Kamala Harris and defeat her."
Signs on the Seattle stage Tuesday touted the importance of the vote not in Washington, but in Michigan.
"We need to turn out every possible vote for Jill Stein and especially where it matters most, in swing states like Michigan," Sawant said.
Sawant opted last year not to run for a fourth term on the City Council, saying she was starting a new political organizing group, Workers Strike Back, to spread her political message nationwide. She has long opposed both major parties. She traveled to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in 2016 to rally against Hillary Clinton, before calling for mass protests against Trump, following his upset victory.
This is Stein's third presidential campaign. She got about 1% of the national vote in 2016 and less than 0.5% in 2012. She also ran for Massachusetts governor in 2002 and 2010, coming nowhere close to victory either time.
Stein's campaign swing comes as Democrats have launched a targeted ad campaign against her, wary that the small percentage of the vote she's likely to get could prove decisive in a close election.
"A vote for Stein is really a vote for Trump," says a new ad from the Democratic National Committee, airing in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
This year, Stein is on the ballot in 38 states, including every swing state except Nevada. As Democratic groups have filed legal challenges attempting to keep minor candidates off the ballot in some states, Stein's campaign has received help from Republicans.
In Nevada, Stein's campaign was represented by Jay Sekulow, a conservative lawyer who represented Trump in his first impeachment trial. In Wisconsin, Stein's campaign was represented by Michael Dean, a conservative lawyer who regularly works with Republicans. Her campaign has also hired Accelevate, a political consulting group that's previously worked with Republicans.
And at a rally in Philadelphia in June, Trump was explicit in his appreciation of Stein and Cornel West, another left-wing candidate who could pull votes from Democrats.
"Cornel West, he's one of my favorite candidates," Trump said. "Jill Stein, I like her very much. You know why? She takes 100% from them."
Emily Grossman, a veterinarian who lives in Seattle's Central District, came to the rally Tuesday evening. She is a longtime Sawant supporter who hasn't decided who she'll vote for in the presidential election.
"I think it's unfortunate that we don't have a candidate in the two-party system who doesn't support the genocide," Grossman said, referring to the war in Gaza.
Despite Sawant and other speakers' anger being primarily focused on Harris — they spoke next to a sign reading "Abandon Harris '24," — Grossman said she still far prefers Harris to Trump.
"I'm not turning my back on my whole community, my whole gender," she said.
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