Democrats roll out ad attacking Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for president

The Democratic National Committee on Friday released its first advertisement this election season targeting a third-party presidential candidate, Jill Stein of the Green Party. With Election Day just weeks away, Democrats are increasingly concerned that Stein’s candidacy could siphon votes away from Vice President Kamala Harris, whose race against former President Donald Trump is tight. The ad will run on television in three battleground states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and on cable nationally, according to a news release.

In the ad, an image of Stein slowly morphs into Trump as a narrator highlights the former president’s past praise for Stein and her stated intention to ensure Harris’ loss.

“A vote for Stein is really a vote for Trump,” the narrator says.

“Jill Stein? I like her very much because she takes 100% from them,” the ad shows Trump saying at a June rally in Philadelphia.

Stein maintains that she is not playing spoiler and that she is giving a voice to voters disaffected with either party. In 2016, if the slim number of swing-state voters who cast ballots for Stein had supported Hillary Clinton instead, Clinton might have won the presidency.

Republican allies of Trump have offered to help Stein’s campaign. Scott Presler, a conservative activist involved in get-out-the-vote efforts, reached out to Stein and Cornel West, another third-party candidate, offering help in collecting signatures to get them on the ballot.

Dems have enlisted an army of lawyers to poke through the ballot-access efforts by Stein.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Stein had sought the help of a consulting group that works with Republican campaigns, as well as several lawyers who have represented Trump or his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Stein has recently won the endorsement of some advocacy groups, including the American Muslim 2024 Election Task Force, a coalition of Muslim American and pro-Palestinian groups. That group has warned that Muslim voters — a substantial voting bloc in Michigan, a key swing state — would peel away from Harris unless she “meaningfully changes course” on her policy toward the war in the Gaza Strip.

“Jill Stein can’t win the presidency, but she will help decide who does,” Mary Beth Cahill, a senior DNC adviser, said. “Donald Trump knows that she’s his key to the White House — that’s why he praises her spoiler candidacy and why his MAGA allies are working to prop up her campaign.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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