Corey Stewart, U.S. Senate candidate for Virginia, visited the Town of Farmville on Friday to discuss policies and to answer questions from those in the area.

Stewart will be running for the senate seat currently held by Tim Kaine.

Stewart, during the event held at Charleys Waterfront Cafe, discussed his position on economic growth, immigration reform and countering what he called a culture of political correctness.

Stewart is currently the at-large chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors.

He said during the event that he has received approximately 10,000 signatures for his campaign.

“Come this November, we are going to shock them all when we take back Virginia and win back the United States Senate,” Stewart said.

Stewart also spoke about immigration, saying that Prince William County has been able to deport persons with illegal immigration status through an item in the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act policy called 287-G, which permits localities, through a partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to enforce immigration law.

Regarding immigration reform, he said President Donald Trump appears to be taking a partisan approach but noted that may be part of the process.

“He wrote the book on how to negotiate,” Stewart said about Trump. “It’s like sausage making, right? You like the end product, but you don’t want to see it happen. It’s not a very pretty process.”

He answered questions from the audience regarding his stance on environmental issues, including his position on offshore oil drilling, and answered a question on state-funded universities that an audience member cited teach politically imbalanced values.

Stewart said he agreed about utilizing oil in the Bakken Reserve in North Dakota and that he would expand his environmental policies.

He also spoke about cultural hypersensitivity and political correctness.

Stewart said this political correctness particularly exists in secondary schools.

He said in the current culture, it was rebellious to be conservative.

“You know what the leftists have inadvertently done?” Stewart said. “They have made rebels out of this generation, and to be here, to be cool is to be a rebel … The counterculture is not to be liberal, it’s to be conservative.”

He noted during the event that his son, Isaac, was considering attending Hampden-Sydney College.

Stewart told The Herald after the discussion that he believes issues that the Heart of Virginia faces that need to be addressed in Washington, D.C. include lack of job growth and the opioid epidemic.

He said he believes incentivizing businesses to come to rural areas in Virginia and building a wall to bar illegal immigrants, including those who may bring opioids into the U.S., would be solutions.

“I’m going to be taking it right to the White House,” Stewart said about the issues. “I’ll be working with the Trump administration to help bring jobs to Farmville and Danville and the rural parts of Virginia.”