On Aug. 16, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein announced that historian and 2004 Penn Ph.D. graduate Rudolph “Butch” Ware III will be her running mate in the 2024 United States presidential election.
Shortly after the announcement, which was made during a livestreamed event on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, the Green Party officially nominated Stein and Ware as their presidential and vice presidential candidates, respectively. Ware, a current professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, received his Ph.D. from Penn and was a former professor at the University of Michigan.
Following the announcement, Ware mentioned his plans to help the campaign secure votes in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, where the Arab American vote is expected to play a crucial role.
“I am a scholar and I am a teacher,” Ware said. “But know this that if I am called into a fight, the fight for the struggle of freedom in our time, I am not going to back down from that fight."
Ware, who specializes in West African history, African American history, and Islamic intellectual history, is also a practicing Muslim. His academic focus aligns closely with the Green Party’s platform, which has long emphasized issues of imperialism, colonialism, and social justice.
Stein — who has run for president on the Green Party ticket twice before in 2012 and 2016 — has made headlines for her strong stance on the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. A central pillar of her campaign is advocating for a ceasefire in Gaza and ending U.S. military aid to Israel.
In a statement on X announcing her vice presidential selection, Stein described the Green Party ticket as a “truly a historic ticket" for bringing together "a Jewish woman and Black Muslim man against genocide, endless war, climate collapse, and rampant injustice."
The Green Party has sought to galvanize voters who are disillusioned with the current administration — particularly those in the Arab American community — who have been vocal in their opposition to President and former Penn professor Joe Biden’s policies on the Israel-Hamas war.
Stein was reportedly seeking a Palestinian American as her vice presidential running mate. One prominent prospective candidate included Noura Erakat, a human rights lawyer and a professor at Rutgers University.
Erakat, who was on Penn's campus as part of programming held during the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on College Green and spoke in March 2023 at a Penn Students Against The Occupation of Palestine speaker event, announced series of posts on X on the day of Stein's announcement that she would not be joining the Green Party’s ticket due to a disagreement over the campaign's strategy.
Erakat claimed that, while she viewed the Green Party as strong on issues related to Palestine, they could not align on how to approach the current political moment.
“My priority remains our collective liberation, rooted in ending genocide facilitated by US cover & relentless arms transfers [to] Israel,” the posts read. “I offered to join [the] ticket if they would be willing to concede the election if Dems deliver on [a] permanent ceasefire and arms embargo. The idea being using Stein’s margin in 3 swing states to compel those concessions.”
A recent poll in Pennsylvania suggests that third-party candidates have the potential to influence the outcome of the presidential race, potentially hindering the Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris' chances. The poll, conducted from Aug. 27-29, shows Harris and Republican presidential nominee and 1968 Wharton graduate Donald Trump tied at 49% each in a direct matchup.
However, when third-party candidates are included, Trump leads Harris by a narrow margin, with 48% to her 47%. Stein is currently polling at 1% in the state.
This pattern aligns with previous polling, where Harris led Trump by 1 point in a head-to-head race, but Trump gained a slight edge when third-party candidates were considered. The threat of third-party candidates to both Harris and Trump is especially great in states like Pennsylvania, whose 19 electoral votes have been slated to determine the outcome of November’s election.
Both Harris and Trump have focused heavily on Pennsylvania during the election campaign, with frequent campaign events to the state.
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