Peter Daou, the former Democratic advisor to Hillary Clinton, has joined third-party candidate Cornel West's 2024 presidential campaign as his new campaign manager.
In a Sunday statement announcing the move, Daou called West "a man of deep personal integrity, great accomplishment, and far-reaching vision."
"His presence in the 2024 race gives voters an exceptional choice for truth and justice beyond the corrupt and corrosive duopoly," Daou said. "Democracy means choice, it means options for voters, not coronations and vote-shaming. It is long past time to practice democracy rather than just pay it lip service."
Running as a Green Party candidate, West has emerged as a potential problem for President Joe Biden and his re-election chances, threatening to split up liberal votes that could hand the Republican Party the presidency. His candidacy comes amid Biden's low approval ratings and growing interest from young voters and unlikely voters, which is estimated to represent roughly 80 million people, for a third-party candidate.
Newsweek reached out to West's campaign for comment.
Daou had a brief stint as the campaign manager for Marianne Williamson's presidential bid earlier this year but left about a month into the job. Williamson is a long-shot candidate for the Democratic nomination.
Although he worked on Williamson's campaign, Daou left the Democratic Party in 2020, citing its willingness to "dismiss sexual assault allegations" and lack of a "moral compass."
"I'M QUITTING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY," Daou announced on April 28, 2020, on X, formerly Twitter. "A party that can so easily dismiss sexual assault allegations and the groping of girls. A party that caged kids BEFORE Trump. A party that rehabilitated Bush, a war criminal. ...is a party without a moral compass that cannot defeat the GOP."
"I just turned 55. I don't know how many years I have left on this earth," he said at the time. "I don't want to belong to a party whose leadership continually caves and compromises with fascists and white supremacists. I want to seek justice with clarity and conviction."
Daou has worked for several Democratic presidential campaigns, including Clinton's 2008 campaign and John Kerry in 2005. He was one of Clinton's vocal supporters in 2016, and then one of Bernie Sanders' in the 2020 primaries. West is also a prominent Sanders supporter, having endorsed him in both 2016 and 2020.
Daou is also a staunch Trump critic. In the statement announcing his leave from the Democratic Party, he criticized top Democrats like Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for "los[ing] ground to rightwing extremists," in a reference to the former president.
"I WANT TRUMP AND HIS GANG OF CROOKS OUT OF POWER," he said. "And I'll continue to do everything I can to defeat them."
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