Lily Belle Poling, Contributing Photographer

Exactly one month before Election Day, the Connecticut Palestine Solidarity Coalition rallied on the New Haven Green to call for a “free Palestine” and vent frustration against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee.

Saturday’s rally was attended by a collective of pro-Palestinian groups ranging from religious Muslim community groups to socialist political parties. Some staffed tables with promotional materials, while other groups and attendees drew signs and posters before the rally began.

Protesters chanted “Killer Kamala, what do you say, how many kids did you kill today?,” with emphasis on the second syllable of “Kamala,” a mispronunciation of the vice president’s name popularized by former President Donald Trump in 2020.

Connecticut residents have organized protests against Israel’s war in Gaza since Israel launched a retaliatory attack following Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 terror attack on southern Israel. The war in Gaza — which many protesters and advocates have described as a genocide — has killed at least 41,500 Palestinians. Over 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since Oct. 7 as well, in escalating Israeli fire exchanges with Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist group. 

Long-shot presidential campaigns

The Party of Socialism and Liberation — a member of the CT Palestine Solidarity Coalition — was tabling at the rally for socialist presidential candidates Claudia De la Cruz and Karina Garcia. According to Kaitlyn Modzelewski, who was providing information at the PSL table, the largest group of PSL members in Connecticut is located in New Haven. 

While De la Cruz and Garcia are on the ballot in some states, in Connecticut, they must be written in as candidates. They have been disqualified in other states, including Georgia and Pennsylvania. 

De la Cruz, a South Bronx native, is a social activist who has worked on campaigns for the freedom of Palestine and against police violence. Garcia, her running mate, is a socialist organizer, who is involved with the Chicana Movement and founded the Justice Center en El Barrio, an East Harlem organization dedicated to community activism. The Claudia & Karina 2024 platform seeks to “end capitalism before it ends us.” 

According to Modzelewski, some of their top demands include securing a free Palestine and seizing the assets of the 100 largest corporations. The pair’s campaign materials also promise to lock up “the corrupt elite,” cut the military budget by 90 percent while ending all aid to Israel and seeking peace with China and Russia, end the “war on Black America” and defend women’s rights and equality for LGBTQ people.

One Claudia & Karina 2024 leaflet addresses concerns about Trump and “[answers] the ‘lesser of two evils’ argument,” which encourages voters who may dislike both the Republican and Democratic candidates to choose whichever one will be least damaging to the country. According to the leaflet, the campaign opposes this mindset, arguing that Democrats aren’t “really that different” from Trump. 

“Voting for Harris does nothing to defeat the enemies of democracy, shifts the entire political spectrum further rightwards, and in most cases won’t even result in different policies than if Trump were in office,” the campaign leaflet reads. “There is nothing strategically or tactically smart about it.”

A similar mindset was promoted in the 2016 election by the Green Party, whose candidate, Jill Stein, drew enough Democratic-leaning voters away from Clinton that Trump pulled out the majority in battleground states like Wisconsin and Michigan. A new Gallup poll shows that 53 percent of Democrats desire a third major political party in 2024. The same poll showed that 48 percent of Republicans desire a third party. 

Saturday’s protesters carried both PSL and Green Party signs promoting Stein, who is running for president again this year.

“It’s important for Americans to know that there’s a strong contingent of people — larger than they may think — who do support this idea of socialism in the United States,” Modzelewski, who was campaigning for De la Cruz, said. “There’s a lot of intricacies about the presidential election here that I feel like are kind of fundamentally undemocratic anyway, and it’s important that we have someone on the ballot that actually is a working-class mother, comes from an immigrant family and has been an organizer all her life.”

Hasan Saleh, a resident of East Hartford who was born in the West Bank before fleeing to Jordan with his family in 1967, told the News at the protest that he has been a Democratic donor in past election cycles. While he plans to vote for Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy in November, Saleh told the News he will vote for Green Party’s Stein over Harris.

Justin Paglino, the Green candidate running for the senate against Murphy, serves as the national field director for Stein. He also attended the rally, hoping to raise support for the Green candidates. 

“Uncommitted” coalition

During Connecticut’s Democratic presidential primary in April — before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race — a statewide coalition, Uncommitted CT, rallied progressive Democrats to vote for the “Uncommitted” option on the ballot to protest Biden’s policies on the war in Gaza. At 21 percent, New Haven saw a greater percentage of uncommitted votes than any other town or city in the state, which organizers of the campaign celebrated as a victory.

Abdul Osmanu, a member of the Hamden Legislative Council who was active in the Vote Uncommitted campaign in April, said that Connecticut’s Palestine Solidarity Coalition, while disappointed by Harris’ policies, is not currently mobilizing voters for a specific third-party candidate or ballot option. Instead, the coalition is encouraging voters to pledge not to vote for a candidate who hasn’t promised to bring forth “meaningful policy change in regard to genocide and the increased militarization in southern Lebanon.”

Osmanu clarified that this description would preclude voters from committing to vote for either Harris or Trump.

“The [Coalition’s] line really is not quite like advocating for folks to vote for a third-party candidate or stay at home at all,” Osmanu said, acknowledging that some members of the Palestine solidarity movement — like the PSL — do have designated third-party candidates they are backing.

Osmanu has not decided how he will vote in November. If he were to vote today, however, he told the News he would not be voting for either of the major party candidates.

Jewish Voice for Peace Action, an active member of Uncommitted CT, is not involved in any electoral organizing in Connecticut right now, according to Miranda Rector, who helped JVP organize for the Uncommitted vote in April.

JVP also did not formally attend the rally on the Green. A spokesperson for the New Haven chapter told News 8 that the group did not participate out of observance for the Jewish High Holidays.

In 2020, Biden won the presidential election in Connecticut with 59.3 percent of the vote. Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate, won 0.4 percent of the vote statewide.