A Monday campaign event for Corey Stewart, the Republican Senate candidate from Virginia and Minnesota man who is very concerned about the destruction of Confederate monuments, featured a speaker who urged conservatives “to turn that ‘blue wave’ into a blue grave.”
According to a video tweeted by Ian Sams, communications director for Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Stewart was introduced in Lynchburg by an unidentified woman who said, “We need to do everything we can to turn that ‘blue wave’ into a blue grave.”
Woman introducing @CoreyStewartVA in Lynchburg today: “We need to do everything we can to turn that ‘blue wave’ into a BLUE GRAVE.”
This is days after pipe bombs are mailed to numerous leading Democrats and 11 are murdered in a Pittsburgh synagogue.
This is not okay. pic.twitter.com/CTmqPOrFtQ
— Ian Sams (@IanSams) October 29, 2018
The “blue wave” is a popular nickname for the expected backlash to President Donald Trump and Republicans in next week’s midterm elections.
Former Republican election official Brian W. Schoeneman pointed out the comments were made by Jennifer Brown, chair of the Republican Committee in Virginia’s 6th district.
The remarks come just one week after several prominent Democrats who have been frequent targets of Trump’s incendiary rhetoric were sent explosive devices. The suspect, Cesar Sayoc, reportedly attended multiple Trump rallies and drove a van covered in stickers supporting the president and taking aim at numerous Democrats and the media.
Stewart, a favorite of white nationalists, has a long history of racism. The Trump-endorsed Republican deleted a tweet in August that referred to Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, a son of Egyptian immigrants and Rhodes scholar, as a “far left ISIS commie.” Stewart later claimed that tweet “was posted by a vendor that his campaign contracted to help build support through social media.”
Stewart also recently deleted another tweet, this one saying Kaine should worry about “his own Virginia citizens” instead of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist and Virginia resident who was murdered inside a Saudi Arabian consulate earlier this month.
The GOP senate candidate called sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh “a bunch of crap” in September.
Back in March, Stewart claimed “You’re more likely to be killed by” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton than an AR-15, a gun used in many mass shootings.
Trump said Stewart, who lost Virginia elections for lieutenant governor in 2013 and governor in 2017, has “a major chance of winning” in June. The Republican trails Kaine by an average of nearly 20 percentage points in recent polling.