Likely Green Party presidential nominee Dr. Jill Stein said Wednesday voters “badly” want a change, urging them to support her in November if they wanted to fix America’s broken political system and rigged economy.
“I’m a physician, not a politician,” Stein told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on “New Day.” “We have a very broken system under the two political parties that have been throwing us under the bus. I think we badly need a change. I think (the voters) understand if we are going to fix the rigged economy we need to fix our broken political system. … It’s the mother of all illnesses.”
Stein, 66, said her campaign strategy would not rely on “peeling off” voters who would have traditionally supported presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, but to attract voters in her own right as an independent, third-party candidate.
“The majority of Hillary Clinton supporters don’t support her — they actually oppose Donald Trump,” Stein, who also ran as the Green Party’s presidential nominee in 2012, said. “At the same time, about 60% of voters are clamoring for another voice and another choice… who is actually an honest broker.”
Stein addressed Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and said there’s a key difference between the two, despite similarities between the Green Party platform and that of the Vermont senator — including forgiving student debt and offering free public education from pre-school through university.
“I think you could say the Green Party is Bernie Sanders,” she said. “The difference between Bernie Sanders and myself is he was trying to have a revolutionary campaign inside a counterrevolutionary party.”
A CNN/ORC poll released Tuesday showed Libertarian nominee, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, earning 9% support nationwide, with Stein pulling 7% support among registered voters. Among those voters who said they were not settled on a candidate in the two-way race, more than one-third chose Johnson (23%) or Stein (12%) when asked about a four-way match up.
The Green Party will officially pick its nominee August 6 at its Houston convention.
