New DNC ad casts Green Party candidate Stein as ‘spoiler’
Oct 11, 2024 | 9:00 am ET
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Green Party candidate Jill Stein, seen here in 2016.(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The Democratic National Committee on Friday released a new TV ad in battleground states critical of Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, calling her a “spoiler” whose candidacy only serves to help former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee for president, to be reelected.
Titled “Crucial,” the ad is going to run in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the “blue wall” states key to winning the White House, and on cable stations across the country. The ad includes an image of Stein that slowly transforms into an image of Trump.
“Just like in 2016, Jill Stein can’t win the presidency but she will help decide who does,” DNC senior advisor Mary Beth Cahill said in a statement. “The stakes of this election are too high to allow Jill Stein to spoil it. The DNC will make sure voters know that a vote for anyone other than Kamala Harris is a vote for Donald Trump.”
Stein was on the 2016 ballot in Pennsylvania, winning 49,941 votes. Democrat Hillary Clinton won 2,926,441 votes in Pennsylvania in that election, to Trump’s 2,970,733 votes, a difference of 44,292 votes.
Trump said at a June rally in Philadelphia “Jill Stein, I like her very much. You know why? She takes 100% from them.”
In a response emailed to the Capital-Star, a Stein campaign spokesperson said the “Dems smear campaign is the best publicity we could ask for,” adding the party has been using its “attack dogs” against them.
“Kamala Harris could win back her base if she would end the genocide with a weapons embargo to Israel now,” the campaign statement reads. “But apparently she prefers killing Palestinian children to winning the election. No amount of lying campaign ads is going to distract from the simple truth that Americans revile this bipartisan genocide.”
Stein appears on the 2024 Pennsylvania ballot as a candidate for president, along with Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris and Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver.
“Trump ‘likes’ that Jill Stein is in this race—because Jill Stein can’t win, but she can help Trump win,” Jaime Harrison, the Democratic National Committee chairman said in a social media post on Friday.
The Wall Street Journal reported in September that Stein’s campaign paid $100,000 in July to a consulting firm that has worked with GOP campaigns.
This article was updated at 8:30 a.m. Oct. 12, 2024 with comment from the Stein campaign and a social media post from Jaime Harrison
Harrisburg, PA