Environmental activist Jill Stein, who is running for president as a Green Party candidate, asked Dearborn, Mich., Mayor Abdullah Hammoud if he would be interested in serving as her running mate, according to two people familiar with the conversation.

Stein, who some Democrats accuse of costing Hillary Clinton the election to Donald Trump in 2016, is in the midst of her third presidential bid. She garnered about 1% of the national vote in 2016. The Green Party is on the ballot in at least 18 states, according to its website, including key swing states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona.

Stein approached Hammoud last week and told the Democratic mayor – who has become a prominent voice for Muslims, Arabs and progressives angered by President Biden’s staunch support of Israel’s war in Gaza – that he was on her “shortlist” of vice-presidential candidates, according to one of the people familiar with the conversation. She then said she wanted him to go through the vetting process to potentially become her running mate.

Stein’s campaign manager, Jason Call, confirmed that she met with Hammoud last week and asked whether he would “consider joining her campaign as her running mate.”

Hammoud, however, is too young to qualify as a vice-presidential candidate. Under the Constitution, the president must be at least 35 years old – and therefore so must the vice president, since that person must be ready to step into the Oval Office at any moment.

The mayor turns 35 in March, meaning he will not meet the age requirement by Jan. 20, 2025, the date of the next presidential inauguration.

“Upon learning that Mayor Hammoud misses the age requirement by three months, Dr. Stein has broadened the invitation, asking him to consider playing a leading role in her campaign,” Call said in a statement. “Our team will continue vetting candidates on her shortlist to find a strong running mate for her presidential campaign.”

Stein’s interest in Hammoud reflects the growing importance of the pro-Palestinian movement in progressive politics, as well as Hammoud’s rise from small-town mayor to a bigger stage.

Biden’s support of Israel has created political challenges for him as he seeks a second term, and he is now met by protesters at nearly every public event. Polls show Democrats are deeply divided over his handling of the war, threatening the fragile coalition that Biden built in 2020 to beat Trump.

Hammoud helped lead an effort in Michigan to encourage Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in their state primaries, instead of casting a ballot for Biden to warn the president that he could lose their votes come November. Michigan’s uncommitted effort garnered more than 100,000 votes. Biden won the state by 154,000 votes in 2020.

The “vote uncommitted” effort has since spread to other states, including neighboring Wisconsin.

Hammoud has gained national prominence since Hamas militants stormed through the Israel-Gaza border on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 253 others hostage, according to Israeli authorities. Israel launched a scorched-earth military campaign in response that has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and created a humanitarian catastrophe in the enclave.

Hammoud has been an outspoken critic of Biden’s support of Israel and his decision to continue sending U.S. weapons even as the president has grown more critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his prosecution of the war. The mayor has met with key White House officials, including deputy national security adviser Jon Finer and administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development Samantha Power. He has called on the Biden administration to cut off weapons to Israel and begin the process of establishing a Palestinian state.

Biden said last month that he would cut off offensive weapons to Israel if it launched a major ground incursion in the southern most Gaza city of Rafah, where some 1.3 million Palestinians were sheltering after fleeing there under Israeli orders. The president also said Israel could not use U.S. weapons to bomb “population centers.”

Israel has moved ahead with an invasion of Rafah and an airstrike on a makeshift tent encampment last week killed at least 45 Palestinians, but the White House said last week Israel had not crossed Biden’s red line.

The war in Gaza has caused sometimes emotional rifts in the Democratic Party, as leading Democrats differ on how tough a line Biden should take with Netanyahu, even while the party overall has become far more critical of Israel. Protests erupted across college campuses nationwide in the spring, as activists demanded that their universities back a cease-fire and divest from companies that work with Israel.

Republicans have almost uniformly backed Israel’s campaign, arguing that any deviation from Netanyahu’s policies would amount to supporting Hamas and terrorism.

Hammoud has yet to say whether he will support Biden or another candidate in November’s presidential contest. Michigan is key to Biden’s path to a second term and he has few, if any, alternate paths if he does not win the critical swing state.

Michigan is also home to the nation’s largest Arab American and Muslim population, with about 300,000 people who claim ancestry from the Middle East or North Africa, and that community overwhelmingly supported Biden in 2020. Biden is expected to face another tightly contested race against Trump this year. Most polls show Trump with a slight lead in Michigan.

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