Jill Ellen Stein (born May 14, 1950) is an American physician and activist, who was the Green Party's nominee for president of the United States in the 2012, 2016, and 2024 elections. She was the Green-Rainbow Party's candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and 2010.
Stein ran her first political campaign as the Green-Rainbow candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 2002, losing to Republican Mitt Romney. She ran for the same position in 2010, losing to the then-incumbent Massachusetts governor, Democrat Deval Patrick.
In 2017, Stein's presidential campaign was investigated by the Senate Intelligence Committee for possible collusion with the Russian government but was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing.
Early life and education
Jill Ellen Stein was born on May 14, 1950, in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in the suburb of Highland Park. Her father Joseph was an attorney while her mother Gladys was a stay-at-home mom. Stein was raised in a Reform Jewish household, attending Chicago's North Shore Congregation Israel.
In 1973, Stein graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College. She then attended Harvard Medical School and graduated in 1979. Stein practiced medicine in the Boston area for 25 years. She also served as an instructor in internal medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Activism and political career As a physician, Stein became increasingly concerned about the connection between people's health and the quality of their local environment. She subsequently turned to activism. In 1998, she began protesting the "Filthy Five" coal plants in Massachusetts.
The Clean Election Law provided public funding for candidates not receiving large private donations, and was eventually repealed in 2003 by the Democratic party controlled state legislature. Stein has said that she left the Democratic Party and joined the Green Party when "the Democratic Party killed campaign finance reform in my state".
In a 2024 interview with Haaretz, Stein said the Green Party was an alternative to the "rigid two-party system [in which] both parties are widely regarded as sponsored by and serving the economic elites, and share their core interests. They're both parties of war and of Wall Street. They may differ on social issues, but on core policies they're very much the same".
On August 17, 2026, a warrant was issued for Stein's arrest after she failed to appear in court for charges against her that stem from a Washington University campus protest that occurred in April 2024. Stein was charged with one count of first-degree trespassing and one count of fourth-degree assault. The warrant was subsequently withdrawn the following day and Stein was ordered by the judge to appear in court to face the charges in September 2026.
Political campaigns 2012 presidential campaign Primary
Stein launched her campaign in October 2011. Her major primary opponents were actress Roseanne Barr and activist Kent Mesplay. Stein proposed the Green New Deal, a government spending plan intended to put 25 million people to work. Mesplay called that unrealistic, saying, "This will take time to implement, and lacks legislative support." Stein became the presumptive Green Party nominee after winning two-thirds of California's delegates in June 2012. On July 1, 2012, the Stein campaign reported it had received enough contributions to qualify for primary season federal matching funds. This made Stein the first Green Party presidential candidate ever to have qualified for federal matching funds. On July 11, Stein selected Cheri Honkala, an anti-poverty activist, as her vice-presidential running mate.Caldwell, Leigh Ann (July 11, 2012) "Running mate revealed: Green Party running mate, that is" , CBS News. Retrieved July 11, 2012.Steinmetz, Katy (July 11, 2012) "The Green Team: Jill Stein's Third-Party Bid to Shake Up 2012" , TIME Swampland (election blog). Retrieved July 11, 2012. On July 14, she officially received the Green Party's nomination at its convention in Baltimore.
General On August 1, Stein, Honkala and three others were arrested during a sit-in at a Philadelphia bank to protest housing foreclosures on behalf of several city residents struggling to keep their homes. On October 16, Stein and Honkala were arrested after they tried to enter the site of the presidential debate at Hofstra University while protesting the exclusion of smaller political parties, such as the Green Party, from the debates. On October 31, Stein was arrested in Texas for criminal trespass, after trying to deliver food and supplies to environmental activists of Tar Sands Blockade camped out in trees protesting the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
The Free & Equal Elections Foundation hosted a third-party debate with Stein and three other candidates on October 19, followed by a debate between Stein and Gary Johnson held on November 5.
2016 presidential campaign Primary
On February 6, 2015, Stein announced the formation of an exploratory committee in preparation for a potential campaign for the Green Party's presidential nomination in 2016.Pindell, James (February 6, 2015) "Jill Stein, Green Party candidate, considers a second run for president" , The Boston Globe. Retrieved February 6, 2015 On June 22, she formally announced her candidacy in a live interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!"Exclusive: Green Party's Jill Stein Announces She Is Running for President on Democracy Now!" , Democracynow.org. June 22, 2015, Retrieved June 23, 2015. After former Ohio state senator Nina Turner reportedly declined to be her running mate, Stein chose human rights activist Ajamu Baraka on August 1, 2016.
Stein's financial disclosure, filed in March 2016, indicated that she maintained investments of as much as $8.5 million, including mutual or index funds that included holdings in industries that she had previously criticized, such as energy, financial, pharmaceutical, tobacco, and defense contractors. In response to questions about her finances, Stein said in part: "Sadly, most of these broad investments are as compromised as the American economy—degraded as it is by the fossil fuel, defense and finance industries", and later characterized the article as a "smear attack" against her.
On September 7, 2016, a North Dakota judge issued a warrant for Stein's arrest for spray-painting a bulldozer during a protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Stein was charged in Morton County with misdemeanor counts of criminal trespass and criminal mischief. After the warrant was issued, Stein said that she would cooperate with the North Dakota authorities and arrange a court date. She defended her actions, saying that it would have been "inappropriate for me not to have done my small part" to support the Standing Rock Sioux. In August 2017, she pleaded guilty to misdemeanor criminal mischief and was placed on probation for six months.
General Stein said in an interview with Politico that: "Donald Trump, I think, will have a lot of trouble moving things through Congress. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, won't ... Hillary has the potential to do a whole lot more damage, get us into more wars, faster to pass her fracking disastrous climate program, much more easily than Donald Trump could do his."
In the same interview, Stein said regarding Trump's business dealings and refusal to release his tax returns: "At least with Clinton, you know, there was some degree of transparency, but what's going on with Trump, you can't even get at, and what he said was that even to clarify 15 out of these 500 deals, these are just like the most frightening mafiosos around the world. He's like—he's a magnet for crime and extortion."
Stein's highest polling average in four candidate polls was in late June 2016, when she polled at 4.8% nationally before ending at 1.9% nationally on the eve of election day.General Election: Trump vs. Clinton vs. Johnnson vs. Stein , Real Clear Politics, August 30, 2016. Retrieved August 31, 2016. Her polling numbers gradually slipped throughout the campaign, consistent with historical trends for minor party candidates.
Stein played a significant role in several crucial battleground states, drawing a vote total in three of them—Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—that exceeded the margin between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.Haberman, Maggie et al (September 22, 2020) "How Republicans Are Trying to Use the Green Party to Their Advantage." New York Times. (Retrieved September 24, 2020.)
Recount fundraising
In November 2016, a group of computer scientists and election lawyers including J. Alex Halderman and John Bonifaz (founder of the National Voting Rights Institute) expressed concerns about the integrity of the presidential election results. They wanted a full audit or recount of the presidential election votes in three states key to Donald Trump's electoral college win—Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—but needed a candidate on the presidential ballot to file the petition to state authorities. After unsuccessfully lobbying Hillary Clinton and her team, the group approached Stein and she agreed to spearhead the recount effort.
A crowdfunding campaign launched on November 24, 2016, to support the costs of the recount, raised more than $6.7 million in nearly a week. On November 25, 2016, with 90 minutes remaining on the deadline to petition for a recount to Wisconsin's electoral body, Stein filed for a recount of its presidential election results. She signaled she intended to file for similar recounts in the subsequent days in Michigan and Pennsylvania. President-elect Donald Trump issued a statement denouncing the recount request saying, "The people have spoken and the election is over." Trump further commented that the recount "is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded."
On December 2, 2016, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette filed a lawsuit to stop Stein's recount. On the same day in Wisconsin a U.S. District Judge denied an emergency halt to the recount, allowing it to continue until a December 9, 2016, hearing. On December 3, 2016, Stein dropped the state recount case in Pennsylvania, citing "the barriers to verifying the vote in Pennsylvania are so pervasive and that the state court system is so ill-equipped to address this problem that we must seek federal court intervention."
Shortly after midnight on December 5, 2016, U.S. District Judge Mark A. Goldsmith ordered Michigan election officials to hand-recount 4.8 million ballots, rejecting all concerns for the cost of the recount. Goldsmith wrote in his order: "As emphasized earlier, budgetary concerns are not sufficiently significant to risk the disenfranchisement of Michigan's nearly 5 million voters". Meanwhile, however, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that Stein, who placed fourth, had no chance of winning and was not an "aggrieved candidate" and ordered the Michigan election board to reject her petition for a recount. On December 7, 2016, Judge Goldsmith halted the Michigan recount. Stein filed an appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court, losing her appeal in a 3–2 decision on December 9, 2016.
On December 12, 2016, U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond rejected Stein's request for a Pennsylvania recount.
In May 2018, The Daily Beast reported that approximately $1 million of the original $7.3 million had yet to be spent and that there remained uncertainty about what precisely the money had been spent on.
Election interference investigation On December 18, 2017, The Washington Post reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee was looking at Stein's presidential campaign for potential "collusion with the Russians." The Stein campaign released a statement stating it would work with investigators. The Committee cleared Stein of any collusion with Russia.