Chris Stirewalt

Chris Stirewalt, a Wheeling, West Virginia native, was a 1993 graduate of The Linsly School.[3] He began his journalism career at age 17 writing baseball box scores for the Wheeling Intelligencer in West Virginia.[3] A 1997 graduate of Hampden-Sydney College[4] in Virginia, he later served as politics editor at the Charleston Daily Mail and West Virginia Media.[5] At the Wheeling Area Chamber of Commerce 50th annual dinner in April 2016, Stirewalt spoke of how he drew on his hometown roots to explain to colleagues at Fox News why Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s message resonated so well with working-class voters in the Ohio Valley, he'd answered, “I know these voters. They are mad. They are really mad because they got (a raw deal).”[6]

“Perino & Stirewalt: I’ll Tell You What” started live on Fox News September 18, 2016 in place of a repeat of Media Buzz, the network’s media-critique program The weekly podcast of the same name developed out of a recent presidential primary and debate season, and featured the hosts having "casual conversations about candidate performances and strategies."[7]

Stirewalt frequently appears on network programs including The Kelly File,[5] America’s Newsroom, Special Report with Bret Baier, and Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. He offers expert political analysis for Fox News coverage of state, congressional, and presidential elections.[8] His role involves serving as the network’s "main on-air analyst of polls and voting trends."[9] Stirewalt hosts the weekly Power Play show on Fox.[10]

Stirewalt's first book, Every Man a King: A Short, Colorful History of American Populists, was published in September 2018[11] by Twelve.[12] In it he "gives short, entertaining, and at times insightful biographical sketches of Andrew Jackson, William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, Huey Long, George Wallace, Pat Buchanan, and H. Ross Perot."[13] Benjamin Welton in the New York Journal of Books states, "All of the men profiled changed American politics forever, and each one played a role in forming the nucleus of the 2016 election."[14]

Whatever the ideological fad of the moment, American populism has always been home to a fascinating assortment of charismatic leaders, characters, kooks, cranks, and sometimes charlatans who have — with widely varying degrees of success — led the charge of ordinary folks who have gotten wise to the ways of the swamp.[15]

— Powell's City of Books

• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Chris Stirewalt on IMDb
• Verified Twitter