Alice Stewart, a Republican strategist turned CNN political commentator, has died. She was 58 years old.
Her death was announced by CNN, which said police found Ms. Stewart’s body outside in northern Virginia early Saturday morning. Authorities said they believed she was having a medical emergency, but did not provide a cause.
Mark Thompson, CNN’s chief executive, described Ms. Stewart in an email to staffers as “a political veteran and Emmy Award-winning journalist who has brought an incomparable spark to CNN’s coverage.”
Ms. Stewart had appeared on the cable news channel as a conservative commentator since the 2016 presidential race. Before that, she worked on several Republican presidential campaigns.
She served as communications director for the 2008 presidential campaign of Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, and later served in similar roles for Republican candidates in two other elections, including those of Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Ted Cruz..
Mrs. Stewart had served as Deputy Secretary of State of Arkansas and was a colleague in 2020 from the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School. She also worked for the Republican Party and conservative organizations.
At CNN, Ms. Stewart saw herself as a stalwart promoter of conservatism as the Republican Party reshaped itself under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump.
“I don’t think everything he does is great, and I don’t think everything he does is bad,” Ms. Stewart said of Mr. Trump. a 2020 interview with Harvard Political Review. “My position at CNN is to be a conservative voice while also being an independent thinker.”
In an opinion piece published on CNN last year, Ms. Stewart asked Republican voters to reconsider their unconditional support for Mr. Trump’s election in 2024, given the various criminal charges he faces.
“This is a campaign of self-preservation, not altruistic public service,” she said. wrote. “I’m not convinced that this is how we can make America great again.”
Before entering politics in 2005 with a position as press secretary in Mr. Huckabee’s administrationMs. Stewart was a news anchor and reporter for seven years at the NBC television affiliate in Little Rock, Ark.
“I loved covering politics. I loved the courts. I loved the latest news,” she said in a 2020 interview with Harvard International Review. “But several years ago I realized maybe I had something different to do.”
Ms. Stewart was born March 11, 1966, in Atlanta and earned a degree in broadcast news and political science from the University of Georgia.
She last appeared on CNN Friday on “The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer.”
Information on survivors was not immediately available.
