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.
It is the loss of the House of Delegates that is the tragedy here. It has almost always been in Republican control and has been a safeguard against the lunacy coming from Democrats in statewide offices. It held a 2 to 1 Republican majority until yesterday's vote. Nobody thought they would lose that majority.
Demographics in Virginia made that an inevitability.
Demographics as in young Republican voters (and old geezers like me) who support Trump and see past the worn out Bush/Gillespie brand?
Appreciate the guidance all you out-of-staters give us poor uneducated Virginians on things like our demographics.
Let me give you some personal, on-the-street actual experience. I happen to live behind enemy lines here in Fairfax County (for you out-of-staters, well, check a map). The Mrs. and I recently dined in one of our favorite locales. Pre-Trump, this place was staffed entirely by Spanish-speaking waiters and waitresses. Ditto most of the customers. Today, nary a one. Likewise the clientele was distinctly hispanic-free. I attribute this to Trump-inspired ICE, which has indeed been busy around here (the stories have been mostly local, out-of-staters).
Here's a REAL kicker. I was at the neighborhood Taco Bell, getting lunch for the grandkids. A hispanic fellow came in, speaking no English. Not one person in the place, not the kid at the counter, not anyone cooking, spoke Spanish! The guy was befuddled. He had to gesture for what he wanted.
I chuckled and thought: MAGA! Thank you, Trump's ICE!
I haven’t noticed any big changes in Fairfax tho I note a trend of liberal friends moving out of DC into NoVa and bringing their politics with them.
I voted for Gillespie but expected him to do as little as his Republican predessors have done.
The anti-Trump people were fired up and the pro-Trump independants had no real reason to vote for Gillespie - I never saw any of his anti-MS 13 ads in NoVa.
That's because Gillespie ran as a 90's type of Republican. It's as if he was in a time-warp - but then, so are the Republicans in Richmond, so no surprise there.
:)
I live in Northern Virginia, and the counties are so populated, they can decide an election if there’s high turnout.
And there was.
We lost three fine conservatives in theHoD Tuesday night; Marshall, Anderson, and Lingamfelter. They are not GoPe. Don't you agree?
Pardon? Bush cuck? Bush worship? Woefully mistaken.
But the demographics in this state may have been changed to the point that we are Maryland, which is not a good thing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.