New London — Calling herself a “plan B” for disappointed Bernie Sanders supporters, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein refuted the “lesser of two evils” narrative of the 2016 race to a crowd of local supporters Thursday morning.

Stein took the podium in a room at the Garde Arts Center gallery on State Street, thanking Sanders supporters for helping a “kernel of revolution to start in the Democratic Party.”

That revolution doesn’t need to end with Sanders’ leaving the race, or his endorsement last week of Hillary Clinton, Stein said.

“It’s anybody’s bet where this goes," she said.

Stein, 66, addressed a common criticism of her campaign and other progressive third-party candidacies — that they draw votes away from major party candidates with a higher chance of winning.

A June Quinnipiac University poll showed Connecticut voters given an opportunity to choose between Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and third-party candidates favor Clinton over Trump, and that 6 percent of voters support Libertarian Gary Johnson and 3 percent support Stein.

But candidates like Clinton don’t have a monopoly on progressive support, Stein said.

“They have to earn our votes,” she said. “If Hillary Clinton can’t earn our votes, she doesn’t deserve our vote.”

Stein blasted Clinton for her support of the war in Iraq as a U.S. senator and her push for U.S. military intervention in Libya as secretary of state.

“Will I feel safe and secure if Hillary Clinton is elected president?” she asked. “No.”

She also pushed her proposals to cancel student loan debts and establish civilian oversight over law enforcement to reduce police violence, and said she would support slavery reparations for African Americans in response to a question from a man in the audience.

Stein, the Green Party candidate for president in 2012, armed the audience of about 50 people with arguments against skeptics who tell them a Green Party vote equates to a vote for Trump.

“The lesser evil is a trick,” she said. “It’s a trap.”

Jonathan Pelto, who served as a Democratic state representative and ran for governor in 2014, spoke for several minutes before Stein, announcing he had registered as a Green Party voter Thursday morning.

Pelto is running for Congress as a Green Party candidate in Connecticut's 2nd District.

"It's time to speak up and stand up," he said, calling the major party presidential candidates "false prophets."

Voting for Stein was “plan A” for Peter Davenport Jr., who came to New London Thursday from Newtown.

He said he won’t feel responsible for a Trump win if he votes for Stein.

“Any person that votes for Donald Trump is the only person that’s responsible for his election,” he said. “I’m not voting for him.”

After Stein’s speech and a question-and-answer session, New London Green Party Town Committee Chairwoman Ronna Stuller passed out clipboards with petitions calling for Stein to be added to Connecticut ballots in November.

Stein already has secured a ballot spot in several states, but her campaign still needs to gather another 3,000 signatures to be eligible for a spot on the Connecticut ballot, she said.

Lauren Shaw, a Waterford resident running in the Green Party for the state House of Representatives’ 38th District, rejected criticism of Stein as a distraction from local efforts to build a third party from the ground up.

“There’s this misconception that we only run people in presidential years,” she said. “We’ve had Greens in municipal offices. We’re out there, we’re growing.”