Posted on 11/08/2017 10:25:18 AM PST by leaymane
Anti-establishment firebrand Corey Stewart wasted little time Tuesday night before offering his synopsis of why Republicans lost big in Virginia's elections: They picked the wrong guy.
After watching Republican Ed Gillespie go down in defeat in the governor's race, Stewart, the chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors and the former chairman of President Donald Trump's Virginia campaign, blasted Gillespie in a statement, saying he "refused to stand with the grassroots of the party and refused to fight ultra left wing Democrats."
"Tonight was a humiliating rejection of the failed Bush wing of the Republican Party," said Stewart, who almost upset Gillespie in the GOP primary for governor earlier this year running on a right-wing populist platform of cracking down on illegal immigrants and defending Confederate symbols.
Gillespie, a former White House aide to President George W. Bush, professed to be running on a big-tent Republican platform in his stump speeches. But after he narrowly beat Stewart in the June primary, his campaign ads took on a harder edge, emphasizing the threat of violence from Latino street gang MS-13 and accusing Democrat Ralph Northam of wanting to "tear down history" by supporting the removal of Confederate statues.
Stewart - now seeking the Republican nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in 2018 - had long said he would support the Republican ticket even though he wouldn't be leading it. But he didn't whole-heartedly endorse Gillespie, and Gillespie never campaigned with Stewart in the general election.
"We were told Virginia needed a moderate to win," Stewart said. "So we nominated one, but after listening to the swamp's consultant class, Virginia's Republicans have gone from losing by 2.5 points to 9 points. Virginians will learn from tonight, and 2018 will be a fantastic year for Republicans as we fight the left and take our country back."
With the governor's race looking close heading into Election Day, Stewart took credit for pushing Gillespie further right, which Stewart claimed boosted Gillespie's standing in the polls.
Though Stewart said Tuesday night that a fuller embrace of Trump's agenda will help lead Virginia Republicans back to victory, it's unclear how that strategy would play out in the only Southern state Trump lost last year.
Northam won Tuesday by tallying huge margins in the so-called golden crescent, the eastern population centers stretching from Northern Virginia to Richmond to Hampton Roads. Gillespie won handily in the state's less populated rural areas, but the red parts of the map simply didn't produce enough votes to counter Democratic-leaning cities and suburbs.
In Stewart's home county of Prince William, Northam won by a whopping margin of more than 20 percentage points.
David Ramadan, a former Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates who has become an outspoken Trump critic, responded to Stewart on Twitter Tuesday night by pointing out that several longtime Republican delegates from the Prince William area lost their seats in Tuesday's anti-Trump backlash.
"Enough with the shilling and further destruction of Conservatism," Ramadan said.
Dann straight!
Honestly, I’m not sure I buy this, and it might not be good for the mid terms believing that.
Seriously, in the case of Virginia, what is making that place lean Dem? Why is it not like Wisconsin, Penn, Michigan?
Disappointing to see Virginia go Dem, but we better learn from it.
So Virginia is no longer a Battleground State, best not to waste resources on it going forward. We don’t need them, anyway.
The heads of the failed Bush wing voted for HRC and for nobody
Their presence alone doesn't help.
We campaign on solid conservative principles, we win. But the GOPe doesn't want that.
The Bushes are a pariah to the Left, Right, Center, Up, and Down wings of the political spectrum. Gillespie is living in a bubble if he thought for a minute that "W" Bush would win him even one vote.
The Bushes are universally despised by ordinary people.
Complete repudiation of the Bushes and the GOPe’ers of the Swamp!
Not buying it. The GOP got wiped out in the House of Delegates including a long time firebrand conservative in NoVa who lost to a T in LGBT. The demographic realities of the state have made the state bluer and bluer each election. The last time a GOPer won a statewide election was 2009.
If you liked Jeb Bush, you’d love Ed Gillespie!
We have had a huge influx of foreigners, both legal and illegal.
The change started during the GWB years and accelerated during the Kenyanesian Usurpation.
The VAGOP has been controlled by the open borders Bush wing for a long time.
Last Gov.’s race we somehow managed to nominate Cucinelli against their wishes and they sabotaged him at every opportunity.
We could have had an honest, conservative Governor, but the Bush wing would rather have McAwful.
Gillespie had already failed as a Senate candidate, mostly because he refused to renounce amnesty/open borders policies.
Those very policies are why he failed again.
I am not buying either. You are correct. Its been 8 years since the GOP won state wide in VA. This is really not a battleground state anymore, especially with so many liberal government workers in NOVA.
Agree 100%. How many living in NOVA live off the Federal Government? How many new “Immigrants” have been drawn to the land of Taxpayer funded Milk and Honey in VA?
Why would they Vote for anyone even slightly affiliated with a movement to lessen the Federal Government’s overreach?
Virginia is just another Domino that has fallen to the Commies. I live in Commiefornia and I remember the days when the Citizenry was Sane. It took a few Decades, but the worm turned here and it will never recover.
Virginia is gone and I am waiting for other Southern States to turn Purple and then Blue. When North Carolina is treated as a Swing State during a Presidential Election, the writing is on the wall.
Allowing McAwful four years to perfect vote fraud doomed us.
The same people who sabotaged Cucinelli expected us to vote for their guy this time.
Didn’t happen.
The Bush crew is responsible for the flipping of VA with their open borders policy, so they have no one to blame but themselves.
Check the sealed scantron or other optical voter ballot boxes...look for numbers of ballots scanned not matching the numbers who canme into vote in each district.(ie 50 ballots in the box vs 300 votes as recorded as being in that box) That is how they cheated in Detroit!
McAuliffe’s FELONS got to vote this time, too!
“The GOP got wiped out in the House of Delegates including a long time firebrand conservative in NoVa who lost to a T in LGBT”
Well maybe next time their lazy base will show up then. Now they get to be represented by a dude in a dress, and they deserve it.
This isn’t determined by a dice roll, voters.
The democrats ran against President Trump and the republicans ran away from him. How did that work out for the republicans
A democrat state voted in another democrat. Same with NYC and same with Jersey.
And I am supposed to be screaming and running in circles?
Meh.
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