If Ed Gillespie wins the race for governor in Virginia on Tuesday, the Trumpier-than-Trump wing of the Republican Party will take credit. Corey Stewart, who narrowly lost to Gillespie in the primary, will make sure of that, with Steve Bannon’s support:
In TV commercials and on the stump, Gillespie has laid claim to defending Confederate monuments and linked the international gang MS-13, also called Mara Salvatrucha, to undocumented immigrants, aping President Trump’s populist agenda as channeled by Stewart in his near-upset in the Republican primary in June.
“It feels like my campaign, doesn’t it?” Stewart said of Gillespie’s commercials as Tuesday’s election loomed, his fulsome grin punctuating his delight. “I feel vindicated by it. What is it that they say? Imitation is the best form of flattery.” [...]
“Corey Stewart is the reason Gillespie is going to win,” Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House chief strategist and Trump’s campaign czar, said in an interview. “It was the Trump-Stewart talking points that got Gillespie close and even maybe to victory. It was embracing Trump’s agenda as personified by Corey’s platform. This was not a competitive race four weeks ago. You could have stuck a fork in Gillespie.”
The race is expected to be close, and if Gillespie wins after running a Stewart-influenced full-throttle-racist campaign, Republicans take the message for 2018: Run racist. Run ugly. Run dirty.
It's now or never. Get out the vote in Virginia.