Alice Stewart, a CNN political commentator, dies at 58

Alice Stewart, a Republican strategist and political commentator for CNN, has died. She was 58.

Her death was announced by CNN. The company said police found Ms. Stewart’s body outdoors in Northern Virginia early Saturday morning. Authorities said they believe it was a medical emergency but did not give a reason.

CNN CEO Mark Thompson described her in an email to staff as “a political veteran and an Emmy Award-winning journalist who has brought an unparalleled spark to CNN’s reporting.”

Ms. Stewart had appeared as a conservative commentator on the cable news network since the 2016 presidential campaign. She previously worked on several Republican presidential campaigns.

She served as communications director for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s 2008 presidential campaign and then served in similar roles for Republican candidates in two subsequent elections, including Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Ted Cruz.

Ms. Stewart served as Assistant Secretary of State in Arkansas and was a 2020 Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. She had also worked for the Republican Party and conservative organizations.

At CNN, Ms. Stewart viewed herself as a stalwart of conservatism as the Republican Party regrouped 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 in an interview with Harvard Political Review in 2020. “My Position at CNN is to be a conservative voice yet an independent thinker.”

In an opinion piece published on CNN last year, Ms. Stewart urged Republican voters to reconsider their unconditional support for Mr. Trump’s 2024 bid in light of the various criminal charges he has faced.

“This is a campaign of self-preservation, not selfless service to the public,” she wrote. “I’m not convinced that’s the way to make America great again.”

Before entering politics in 2005 and working as a press secretary in Mr. Huckabee’s administration, Ms. Stewart was a news anchor and reporter for seven years at an NBC television station in Little Rock, Arkansas.

“I loved covering politics. I loved dishes. I loved breaking news,” Ms. Stewart said in a 2020 interview with Harvard International Review. “But a few years ago I just realized that maybe I could do something different.”

She was born in Atlanta on March 11, 1966 and earned degrees in broadcast news and political science from the University of Georgia.

Ms. Stewart was last seen on CNN on Friday in “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.”

Information about their survivors was not immediately available.