Corey Stewart blames ‘ass hurt’ Republicans for negative press coverage

Virginia Senate candidate Corey Stewart (R) claimed in a new interview that his campaign is suffering from negative media coverage because of “ass hurt” establishment Republicans targeting his Senate bid.

Stewart, who has failed to earn support from many establishment Republicans, claimed in an interview with the Independent Journal Review that “a bunch of jealous Republicans who are upset that I defeated their guy in the primary” are “feeding this information to the left-wing media.”

Stewart has sparked controversy with his defense of Confederate monuments, and he also told Hill.TV earlier this year that he didn’t believe the Civil War was about slavery and was instead mostly about states’ rights.

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He also called Michigan gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed (D) an “ISIS commie” in a since-deleted tweet this week. Stewart told The Hill that the tweet was sent from a vendor, who has since lost access to his Twitter account but has not been otherwise punished.

“There’s a whole slew of them,” Stewart told IJR. “And a lot of them are connected to my prior primary opponent,” referring to Nick Freitas (R), who lost to Stewart in the GOP Senate primary.

“I’m not going to blame him for that. It’s just that he’s got a lot of sourpusses out there who have an ax to grind because I beat their guy,” Stewart said.

“They are poor sports willing to take down the Republican nominee for the United States Senate all because their ass hurts,” he added.

Stewart failed to earn support from establishment GOP groups after he secured the Republican nomination for the Senate seat: The National Republican Senatorial Committee said the group had no plans to endorse him in the race, and the Republican National Committee hasn’t said whether it would back the candidate.

President Trump endorsed Stewart after the candidate won the party nomination in June.

Incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine (D) is leading Stewart by 23 points in the race, according to a Virginia Commonwealth University poll released Wednesday.