'Mini-Trump' Corey Stewart Loves Confederate Statues, and Jamming Up Republican Ed Gillespie
Asked if he’s pushing Gillespie to the right, Stewart said, ‘I’m trying to.’
ELEANOR CLIFT
09.13.17 1:00 AM ET
Corey Stewart is Ed Gillespie’s worst nightmare—a visible reminder to voters of the part of Gillespie’s Republican Party that the former GOP chairman wishes voters didn’t see.
Stewart almost beat Gillespie in Virginia’s June gubernatorial primary. Almost nobody saw it coming before Stewart, who chairs the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, came from 45 points only to fall just short of an epic upset on the strength of what turned out to be a sleeper issue—preserving Confederate monuments.
Now he’s using his narrow loss and his new platform to bedevil Gillespie, and to set the stage for a Senate run in 2018.
He has yet to endorse Gillespie, telling The Daily Beast, “I’m no longer a believer in politicians endorsing other politicians. It’s a two-edged sword. Gillespie doesn’t necessarily want to inherit all my views,” and the feeling is mutual, he says. He’ll vote for Gillespie and encourage his supporters to do the same, but he’s pretty tepid.
Stewart is from Minnesota, but he’s a son of the South now, a persona that went viral when he visited Charlottesville in February to protest the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue from a downtown park. He was mobbed by counterprotestors, and the video went viral. “It caused my Facebook page to blow up. That’s when I knew I hit a nerve.”
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/mini-trump-corey-stewart-loves-confederate-statues-and-jamming-up-republican-ed-gillespie
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