Corey Stewart, one of the 16 far-right candidates we have been tracking in the 2018 midterm elections, won the Republican primary in Virginia last night, successfully beating right-wing pastor E.W. Jackson and GOP mainstay Nick Freitas for the chance to face off against Sen. Tim Kaine in November.
Stewart is an anti-immigrant conspiracy theorist who has compared the removal of Confederate monuments from public spaces to gruesome acts of terror committed by ISIS. Last year, Stewart nearly pulled off an upset win in Virginia’s gubernatorial primary by heavily focusing his campaign on the preservation of Confederate monuments. He was rewarded with an endorsement by neo-Confederate Richard Hines of Save Southern Heritage.
Stewart has also expressed sympathies to the so-call “alt-lite” and has been affiliated with right-wing extremists like “pro-white” activist Jason Kessler, who is currently planning a follow up to last year’s violent “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. He also named Paul Nehlen, a racist anti-Semite running for office in Wisconsin, “volunteer of the week” and said Nehlen was one of his “personal heroes.” Stewart eventually disavowed both Kessler and Nehlen, but only after media pressure.
And it’s not just affiliations—Stewart has heinous policies of his own that are inspired by the president’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. One policy he has promised to work on if elected would require that police officers check the immigration status of every person they arrest.
In addition to his ties to explicit racists, Stewart keeps company with rampant conspiracy theorists, including Paul Begley. Yesterday, Stewart spent extended time with a “Pizzagate” proliferator, Jack Posobiec, who was once removed from a Washington pizzeria for filming a child’s birthday party as part of his “investigation” into the conspiracy theory. Yesterday, Posobiec interviewed Stewart for his employer One America News and gave a speech at Stewart’s election night party during which he called Stewart’s ties to white nationalists that had been unearthed by reporters “smears” and “lies.”
Although Sen. Cory Gardner told CNN’s Manu Raju that the National Republican Senatorial Committee doesn’t plan to endorse Stewart, this morning President Trump congratulated Stewart on winning last night’s primary:
Congratulations to Corey Stewart for his great victory for Senator from Virginia. Now he runs against a total stiff, Tim Kaine, who is weak on crime and borders, and wants to raise your taxes through the roof. Don’t underestimate Corey, a major chance of winning!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2018
This morning on “Breitbart News Daily,” Stewart told host Alex Marlow that “if the Republican establishment wants to oppose the president and myself and others who support him on those things, they’re going to go the way of the dodo. They’re going to disappear.”
