Across the Atlantic, the press paid little attention to his third candidacy for the supreme election. On the electorate side, the majority of citizens, accustomed to the historic bipolarization of American political life, are limited to the Kamala Harris-Donald Trump duel. But within the apparatuses of the Grand Old Party (GOP) and the Democratic Party, Jill Stein’s actions are scrutinized, spied on, dissected. Ranked on the far left of the political spectrum, the environmentalist candidate lets the worst-case scenario emerge for Kamala Harris’ campaign: the return of Donald Trump to the White House.
So, for several weeks, both camps have been itching to know the definitive answer to the question: Will Jill Stein end up withdrawing her candidacy? The Democrats hope so, calling in all directions on the 74-year-old former doctor “to be held accountable”. The Republicans are counting on its retention to reduce Kamala Harris’s score by a few hundred thousand votes. During the 2016 presidential election, Jill Stein received nearly 1.5 million votes. A drop in the ocean of 230 million American voters, which can nevertheless make the difference, even more so at a time when the gap between the two rivals seems to have never been so tight.
Stein, Donald Trump’s best asset?
It is not for nothing that Donald Trump declared last June, “loved Jill Stein very much”. Several national polls have recently placed the independent candidate around 1%. In other words, a score which could prove to be “more than sufficient to make the difference”, underline our colleagues from New York Times who also recall that the votes obtained by Jill Stein in 2016 in the swing states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and even Pennsylvania, had exceeded Donald Trump’s margins of victory. This year, it is around the key state of Michigan that the concerns of the Democratic camp are concentrated, which has deployed a large advertising campaign targeting the former doctor.
From Detroit to Lansing to Ann Arbor, billboards are plastered with posters reading: “Jill Stein Helped Trump Once. Don’t Let Her Do It Again.” A reference to the 2016 precedent, regularly agitated by Democrats who accuse Jill Stein of having opened the doors of the White House to Donald Trump. Accusations brushed aside by the Harvard graduate, who does not budge: “Be sure, my voters will never vote for Kamala Harris.” For Françoise Coste, historian, professor at the University of Toulouse-Jean-Jaurès and specialist in the United States, Jill Stein “is undoubtedly right: the people who vote for her consider themselves far too far above the fray to vote for a Democratic Party candidate.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the main angle of attack
Formerly a supporter of the Democrats, Jill Stein today displays very harsh positions against the Biden administration. Like his entourage, who does not hesitate to bombard the Democratic Party with criticism. The most acidic ones come from the pen of his running mate, Butch Ware. A few days after celebrating the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks, the self-described “servant of truth” for example described Barack Obama as a “house nigger.” This, after having accused Kamala Harris of “the black face of white supremacy” and of “a Zionist married to a convinced Zionist”.
It must be said that for Jill Stein, the conflict in the Middle East constitutes both a political weapon and a tool serving electoral patronage. On the one hand, the Israel-Hamas war allows her to mark a clear distinction with the democratic camp which she criticizes for its positions deemed too pro-Israeli. On the other hand, by presenting herself as the only alternative to the “unconditional support” of the two main parties, Jill Stein is trying to rally the voices of Arab-Muslim communities. A profitable strategy. At least, in the polls.
Harris-Trump: white hat, white hat
According to a study carried out at the end of August by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), 40% of Muslim voters support the environmentalist candidate compared to only 12% for Kamala Harris and 18% for Donald Trump. “Some Muslims say they no longer feel represented by the Democratic Party, but many groups nevertheless remain loyal to Harris because they understand that Trump is much worse,” however, nuance Lauric Henneton, lecturer at the University of Versailles. Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.
It is precisely this gap, which distinguishes the conservative billionaire from the former San Francisco prosecutor, that Jill Stein strives to erase, by sending the two back to back. “Kamala Harris is right that Donald Trump has no plan for you [NDLR : les Américains]. The problem is that she doesn’t either,” she pounded from her X account. Rhetoric which, according to United States specialist Lauric Henneton, has always existed “on the left of the Democratic Party.”