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 outdoors in Northern Virginia on Saturday morning. Authorities said they believed she had a medical emergency but did not provide a cause.
Mark Thompson, CNN’s chief executive, described Ms. Stewart in an email to staff members as “a veteran politician and Emmy-winning journalist who has brought an unparalleled spark to CNN’s coverage.”
Stewart has 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 was communications director for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign in 2008, and served in similar roles for Republican candidates in two more elections, including those of Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Ted Cruz.
Stewart was deputy secretary of state in Arkansas and was a 2020 fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics. She also worked for the Republican Party and conservative organizations.
At CNN, Stewart saw herself as a staunch 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,” Stewart said of Trump in a 2020 interview with the Harvard Political Review. “My position at CNN is to be a conservative voice but an independent thinker.”
In an op-ed published on CNN last year, Stewart urged Republican voters to reconsider their unconditional support for Trump’s 2024 election candidacy, given the multiple criminal charges he has faced.
“This is a campaign about self-preservation, not selfless public service,” she wrote. “I’m not convinced that’s how you make America great again.”
Before transitioning into politics in 2005 as press secretary in the Huckabee administration, Ms. 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 courts. I loved the latest news,” she said in a 2020 interview with Harvard International Review. “But several years ago I realized there might be something different for me to do.”
Alice Fraker was born on March 11, 1966, in Atlanta. Her father, Gerald, was a furniture salesman, and her mother, Carolyn Bestedt, was a nurse. She graduated with a degree in news and political science from the University of Georgia.
She moved from Little Rock to Virginia after being hired by CNN in July 2016, shortly before Trump officially became the Republican nominee for president.
Stewart last appeared on CNN on May 17 in “The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer.”
She had a brother, Eric, and two sisters, Andrea Schwind and Heather Thompson. Information about survivors was not immediately available.
