Liberty Hosts GOP Primary Debate for U.S. Senatorial Candidates

While Democrat Tim Kaine will be running as an incumbent for the Virginia U.S. Senate seat, three Republicans are chasing the position as the Republican nominee for Virginia’s open Senate seat.

Those candidates took the stage of Liberty University’s Center for Music and the Worship Arts concert hall Thursday, April 19 to debate topics such as the federal budget, foreign policy and immigration.

The first of the candidates to be introduced was E.W. Jackson, bishop of The Called Church in Chesapeake, Virginia. In 2013, Jackson was the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor, marking the first African-American Republican nominee for a statewide position in Virginia in a quarter of a century.

Next was Nick Freitas, a former Green Beret who served two tours in Iraq and currently represents Culpeper County, Virginia, in the House of Delegates. Freitas has been considered to be more of a Libertarian, and he has the endorsement of Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a notable “small government” Republican.

Prince William County Board chairman Corey Stewart was the final candidate to appear. His aggressive campaign has been a major plot point thus far. Stewart failed to become the GOP nominee for governor last year during the gubernatorial primaries, and prior to that he served as a leader in President Donald Trump’s campaign in Virginia.

With Liberty’s Executive Director of External Communications Len Stevens and WSET’s Mark Spain moderating, the debate began with a discussion on the recently signed budget bill. All three condemned the action, citing both political parties as being responsible.

“We promised the American people that if they sent us to Washington, if they gave us the House, if they gave us the Senate and if they gave us the presidency, we would get spending under control,” Freitas said. “We have failed to do so, and it is a leadership problem within the House.”

As the questions continued, the candidates seemed to all be in agreement. All three lacked confidence in America’s nuclear weapons deal with Iran, supported further military strikes in Syria and saw the ongoing Mueller investigation of possible Russian tampering with the 2016 election as an attempt to undermine the president.

“(Mueller)’s on a fishing expedition … to undermine the president of the United States because they could not defeat him at the polls in 2016,” Stewart said.

Jackson used the topic to transition into a proclamation of how the Democratic Party has led minority voters astray.

“We’ve got to have a candidate in the general election who is not only going to excite those evangelicals, and those veterans, and those Second Amendment activists, but is going to bring minority voters to our side,” Jackson said. “We need to expose the lie that Democrats have told them that they are for them when they do nothing, and that we are against them when we have solutions.”

The commonality began to dissolve as the candidates addressed the current Facebook controversy. While Freitas and Jackson agreed that a boost to the free market is the best means of reducing Facebook’s influence, Stewart mentioned the site’s censorship of online conservative stars Diamond and Silk, who visited Liberty’s Convocation earlier in the semester. He said he wants to involve antitrust investigators from the Department of Justice and break up the social media monopoly.

Freitas responded by saying the government cannot be trusted with this power.

“If you want to see someone dominate and manipulate speech, hand it over to the government,” Freitas said. “If you haven’t been paying attention for the last 100 years- when you give the federal government more power, it tends to abuse it.”

Not long after this, Freitas and Stewart faced off when immigration policies were addressed. Following Freitas’ statement of support for a border wall and other conservative solutions, Stewart sprang at the chance to bring up an interview in which Freitas said he “can’t quite commit to the wall.”

Freitas rebutted by mentioning the publicized conversation with his daughter when she asked Freitas what is wrong with their Portuguese last name after she saw a meme published by Stewart affiliates proclaiming, “Freitas sounds like something more on the dollar menu at Taco Bell than it does a U.S. Senate candidate.”

“I fought for my country,” Freitas said. “I am every bit as much a citizen as you are, Corey Stewart, and I don’t appreciate it when my kids have to ask me that question in this country.”

Stewart did not show any denial or surprise at the accusation, and he countered by accusing Freitas of not having thick enough skin for what awaits in the general election.

“If all it takes is to make a little bit of fun of your name by some supporters out there of mine, if that’s all it takes to get under your skin, you’ve got some major problems if you were ever to get this nomination,” Stewart said. “I don’t think you’re gonna do it, but if you did, (Kaine is) going to eat you up and spit you out.”

The candidates then gave their closing statements to roughly 400 in attendance, and, while both Stewart and Freitas shook hands with Jackson, they refused to do so with one another.

The primary election for the GOP nominee is set for June 12, and the general election against Kaine is Nov. 6.