Howie Hawkins clinches Green Party’s nomination after primary wins

Green Party co-founder Howie Hawkins became the party’s presumptive 2020 nominee on Sunday after two states and a major party caucus held their contests a day earlier.

Hawkins entered the weekend just a handful of delegates shy of the 176 needed to win the nomination and pushed above the threshold after the Michigan and Kentucky’s Green Party primaries on Saturday, according to the Hawkins campaign. The Lavender Greens, a national LGBTQ caucus, also held their nominating convention on Saturday. After an initial count of the results, Hawkins sat at 184 delegates.

“Mounting unnecessary deaths from COVID-19 and the uprising against racism have revealed how the two governing parties are presiding over a failed state. The Green Party is the alternative: Medicare for All, the full-strength Green New Deal, an Economic Bill of Rights, and ending militarized policing at home and abroad,” said Hawkins in a press release.

His nomination represented a broad attempt to bring various left-wing causes together as an alternative for left-leaning voters disillusioned with former Vice President Joe Biden’s (D) presumptive 2020 nomination in the Democratic Party.

Hawkins was endorsed last fall by another third party, the Socialist Party of America, and is running alongside Angela Walker, a former Socialist Party vice presidential nominee.

“We’re in a moment when the working class is faced once again between a choice of two unpopular candidates backed by capitalist parties who put the 1% first. We must break this cycle because most of us are not in a position of privilege to afford the so-called lesser evil,” added Walker in a statement. “Howie and I are looking forward to officially receiving the nomination in July and look forward to sharing the values of the Green Party with folks who haven’t met us yet.”

The party co-founder’s closest rival for the nomination before Saturday was Dario Hunter, a member of the Youngstown, Ohio Board of Education and the first ex-Muslim man to be officially ordained as a rabbi.