Buoyed by a raucous San Antonio rally Sunday, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein said Texans have gotten the message that there are more than two candidates in the race for the White House.

“Texas is rising up strong,” Stein said, recounting her weekend campaign events in the Alamo City, Houston and El Paso that drew large crowds.

“People are not drinking the Kool-Aid here that’s telling them to be good little boys and girls and just keep voting for the same two-party system that’s throwing people under the bus,” Stein said.

“It’s time to throw the bums out who are standing in the way” of environmental and social justice, she told several hundred Green Party supporters at Galería EVA, in the 3400 block of South Flores Street.

Addressing a major concern for many voters, Stein disputed arguments that a vote for a third party is a wasted vote. “There is no greater waste of a vote than to vote for a failed, two-party system,” she said.

Stein, 66, of Lexington, Mass., is a Harvard-trained physician who became involved in politics as a health and environmental advocate. In 2002, she was the Green Party candidate for governor of Massachusetts, competing with Republican Mitt Romney. A decade later, Stein challenged Romney again, in the 2012 presidential race, after winning the Green’s nomination over comedian Roseanne Barr.

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In her only elected role, Stein served on the Lexington Town Meeting from 2005-11. She also made a failed bid for secretary of state in Massachusetts.

In August, at their national convention held at the University of Houston, about 300 Green party members selected Stein as their 2016 nominee, with vice presidential running mate Ajamu Baraka. Delegates spoke out against fracking, racism, poverty and voter suppression as they tapped Stein, who touched on those issues at the San Antonio event.

“It’s time to move on” from fossil fuels, she said. Her party’s “Green New Deal” platform “turns the tide on climate change and it makes the friggin’ wars for oil obsolete,” she said.

Stein assailed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as well as Republican foe Donald Trump over their immigration, energy and foreign policies, and lamented the Green Party’s exclusion from the series of presidential debates that concludes Wednesday. The bipartisan commission in charge of the debates said she never reached the polling threshold to be included in the three debates.

Stein’s attacks on the commission and media drew loud support from the San Antonio audience that included Native Americans, senior citizens, and young adults, including minorities.

Even with their enthusiasm, Stein supporters are accustomed to predictions that Stein will finish no better than fourth on Nov. 8, behind the major-party candidates and Libertarian Gary Johnson.

The Green Party, founded in 1984, has captured as much as 2.7 percent of the national vote — in 2000, when consumer advocate Ralph Nader challenged Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore. That watershed election yielded a record 2.8 million votes for the Green party.

In 2012, Stein nationwide got 0.36 percent — 470,000 votes — less than half of the Libertarian candidate but a general-election record for a woman seeking the White House.

In Texas, Stein garnered 24,657 votes, or 0.31 percent of the 2012 statewide total. Stein got 1,765 votes in Bexar County that year, or .23 percent.

The latest Texas Lyceum poll, taken in early September, pegged the third-party candidates well behind Trump and Clinton, with Johnson at 9 percent and Stein at 3 percent. Greens statewide, including dozens of down-ballot candidates around Texas, are hoping to improve on that percentage. They hope to exceed 5 percent for a statewide candidate, the level that guarantees them ballot spots in the next election.

In addition to the presidency, Green candidates also are on the ballot for Congress, Texas Railroad Commission, Texas Supreme Court, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Bexar County sheriff and justice of the peace. Early voting starts Oct. 24.

jgonzalez@express-news.net

Twitter: @johnwgonzalez