Jill Stein, Chase Oliver could cost Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania: Poll
Jill Stein, Chase Oliver could cost Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania: Poll
With 19 Electoral College votes, Pennsylvania is a critical battleground state to win in the presidential race.
Unlikely since Stein and Oliver both draw from different groups.
Here's how PA played out in 2020:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_Pennsylvania
Democratic - Joe Biden - 3,458,229 - 50.01%
Republican - Donald Trump - 3,377,674 - 48.84%
Libertarian - Jo Jorgensen - 79,380 - 1.15%The Greens didn't even rate. But assuming the Libertarian votes (Oliver's party this time) would have all gone to Trump, that still wouldn't have been enough to flip the election. 3,457,054
2020 is a a bad metric to use.
We are starting to see Republicans make concessions for independent voters. Trump is flip-flopping on weed and abortion to appeal to Libertarian voters. So far Democrats have not budged much on their key issue.
Oh no, what can the Kamala campaign possibly do about it?
kamala knows what she needs to do to win those votes. balls in her court...
Dangit if only there was some incredibly popular thing Kamala could do to win over all those independent voters
As a progressive living in Pennsylvania, I don't know anybody who is voting for Stein, and I don't even know who Chase Oliver is. I know more people who still plan to vote for RFK and those people are batshit insane.
I have plenty to complain about with Harris, and I want her to keep campaigning here, but I am cautiously optimistic. I don't claim to have polling data, just the general buzz among the Green Party members I know and awareness of lawn signs. So take that with a huge grain of salt.
Stein's campaign is right about this:
"In a democracy, no one owns your vote, candidates need to earn your vote, and the only 'spoilers' are the political elites who work overtime to deny a meaningful democratic choice to voters who are hungry for real choice..."
What has Jill Stein done to earn your vote, though? Viability is a big part of that. If I could snap my fingers and institute STAR voting tomorrow, we would be having a different conversation. Yes, we want better politicians and policies, but if you don't think that the choice between Harris and Donald Fucking Trump is meaningful, then you've got your head entirely up your own ass.
Harris doesn't get my vote because I owe it to the Blue Team. She gets my vote because she's a reasonable adult running against a violent madman, and she's the only candidate who can stop him.
Jill Stein is nothing. She's a joke, and likely funded by Russian oligarchs hoping to help Trump.
Even at face value, the whole "candidate earns your vote!" spiel is just not how our system works.
We have two options. You can nudge the outcome a tiny bit in either direction by directly voting for one, or you can let the other voters decide for you by either abstaining or voting 3rd, but end result is red team or blue team.
It'd be ideal if one of those actually did 'earn' your vote, but it doesn't always pan out that way. If you're not an idiot, you choose the one that's least bad.
...and this election, one of the two options is a fucking Nazi.
I think Harris actually has done plenty to earn my vote beyond the whole lesser evil schtick, but frankly my praise or complaints about her are all moot because she's not a fucking Nazi.
Stein wants to trick people into wasting their nudge away from the Nazi. Stein is helping the Nazi. Stein can go fuck herself.