This election cycle is a difficult one. For many Americans, the issues on the table this November are deeply personal. From reproductive freedom to the genocide in Gaza, the people I represent have expressed immense anguish, fear and frustration with our political status quo. And I don’t blame them.
Our economic rifts seem to have widened. Bad actors have intensified their agenda to divide us, and the threat of another disastrous Donald Trump presidency looms. We witness examples every day of how politics and government can fail communities at home and abroad.
In this critical election year, voters have several presidential candidates on their ballot. Yet many still feel disillusioned and angry with the choices.
So it cannot be overstated that there are two paths on Election Day that will undoubtedly lead to a Trump presidency: a vote for Trump or a vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Only one path — a vote for Vice President Kamala Harris — will help advance a progressive agenda that supports working families, lifts small businesses and promotes economic justice.
I recognize those among us who view their third-party vote as a protest against our current administration’s failed and dangerous foreign policy on Palestine. I absolutely respect those who understand the power of their voice as a check and balance on a system that isn’t working for them, and I agree that we must broaden our political discourse and power structures in the United States.
But it takes more than putting up a candidate once every four years to build viable momentum for political change. And now, with the “make America great again” movement threatening our basic rights and even more violence on marginalized communities, we can’t risk taking a single vote from the Harris campaign.
Every four years, Stein emerges from obscurity to run for president, doing little in the interim to help the communities she claims to care about. She abandoned us in 2016, in 2020 and will undoubtedly do it again this year.
And while I agree with Stein on many progressive positions, she fundamentally refuses to acknowledge that policy change requires not just winning office but also the grueling work of party-building and community organizing. She doesn’t understand that building a constituency with shared values and advocating for change is a long-term endeavor. It necessitates organizing in communities across the state and the country, amassing a grassroots base of real people, establishing ways for them to participate in politics and fostering a culture of year-round civic engagement.
Stein isn’t interested in any of this. Between elections, she disappears. Even during election season, she mostly spouts Russian talking points, rather than proposing a path for a better future.
For these reasons, I am certain that Stein will be of no help to any of us after Nov. 5. Every vote she draws away from Harris this year will effectively be a vote for Trump. That’s why the MAGA movement loves Stein and supports her: She can’t win, but she can bleed away votes from the Harris-Walz campaign in critical battleground states such as Wisconsin — where every vote matters.
And that would prove catastrophic.
Like many of my constituents, I am frustrated that every four years, we seem to find ourselves at this juncture. We are dissatisfied with our government, but are still being asked to sacrifice at the ballot box to prevent something worse from happening.
Only one candidate can beat Trump, and she is Harris.
The sobering reality is that for Palestine, climate justice, racial equality and all the other issues that matter to us as leftists and as humans, we can only organize under a Harris administration. Under a Trump presidency, some of us might not even survive.
We cannot afford to vote for Stein.