Alice Stewart, CNN political commentator, dies at 58

Alice Stewart, a CNN political commentator and veteran political abettor who labored on quite a lot of GOP presidential campaigns, has died at past 58, the information community reported Saturday.

Police in northern Virginia instructed CNN that Stewart’s frame used to be discovered outside within the Bellevue group early Saturday morning and that disagree foul play games used to be suspected. Officers consider Stewart suffered a clinical episode, in step with CNN.

In an e mail to team of workers, the community’s CEO Mark Thompson known as Stewart “a very dear friend and colleague to all of us at CNN.”

“A political veteran and an Emmy Award-winning journalist who brought an incomparable spark to CNN’s coverage, known across our bureaus not only for her political savvy, but for her unwavering kindness,” he wrote. “Our hearts are heavy as we mourn such an extraordinary loss.”

Negative additional details about the reason for demise or survivors used to be to be had Saturday.

Stewart used to be born on March 11, 1966, in Atlanta, and started her occupation as a neighborhood reporter in Georgia earlier than transferring to Slight Rock, Arkansas to be a information anchor. She went directly to handover because the communications director in then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s place of job.

She assumed related roles right through Huckabee’s presidential run in 2008 and served as communications director for the 2012 presidential bids of Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and nearest former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Maximum not too long ago, Stewart used to be the communications director for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 marketing campaign.

“Heartbreaking,” Cruz posted Saturday on X. “⁦Alice was wonderful and talented and a dear friend. And she loved America fiercely. She lived every day to the fullest, and she will be deeply missed. May God’s comfort and peace be upon her loved ones. RIP.”

Stewart got here on board CNN as a political commentator earlier than the 2016 election and ceaselessly seemed on breeze to serve perception at the political information of the moment. She extreme seemed Friday on “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.”

Stewart instructed the Harvard Political Evaluate in 2020 that she brings “a perspective that I think CNN appreciates.”

“My position at CNN is to be a conservative voice yet an independent thinker,” Stewart mentioned. “I’m not a Kool-Aid drinker; I’m not a never-Trumper, and I didn’t check my common sense and decency at the door when I voted for (Trump).”

Former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson posted on X that Stewart’s “sudden death is such a loss to all who valued her friendship as well as her political passion”

“I first met Alice in Arkansas and I am proud that she focused on making friends in politics and not making enemies,” he posted. “Thank you Alice Stewart!”

Stewart additionally co-hosted the podcast “Hot Mics from Left to Right” along fellow CNN commentator Maria Cardona and served at the senior advisory committee on the Institute of Politics at Harvard College’s Kennedy College the place she used to be in the past a fellow.

In her separate future, Stewart used to be an avid runner, in step with CNN. She ceaselessly posted pictures from highway races on social media, together with from the TCS Unused York Town Marathon, which she ran in November, and the Credit score Union Cherry Blossom 10 Mile race, which she ran extreme age.