Kellie Leitch’s Controversial Campaign Manager Has Resigned

The controversial campaign manager behind Kellie Leitch's Trump-esque style has resigned.

Nick Kouvalis, who managed successful campaigns for Rob Ford and John Tory, posted on social media today that he "communicated to Kellie Leitch my decision to resign as her campaign manager."

"I did so because it has become clear that I have become a distraction to the campaign," reads the post. "When a member of a campaign team becomes the focus of media coverage, the time comes to resign."

Leitch is currently running to be the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and has campaigned on what many call dog whistle and xenophobic policies which include intensive vetting of refugees and immigrants in regards to "Canadian values."

Both Leitch and Kouvalis faced a wave of criticism after the Quebec mosque shooting regarding the tone the campaign took on immigrants and refugees.

For much of the campaign, Kouvalis was the focal point for a lot of criticism lobbed at Leitch. At one point, Kouvalis purposefully posted fake news on Twitter in an attempt to drum up names of people who would join the Conservative party to vote against Leitch. According to Maclean's, Kouvalis called this strategy "Operation Flytrap."

"The campaign should be solely about the candidate and their plans, not their staff's beliefs, nor their staff's conduct," read Kouvalis' resignation post. "It has also become clear to me that the pressures that come with a stressful campaign leadership role are not conducive to my personal well being."

At least one person has called Kouvalis a "cuck" in response to this resignation, a term that Kouvalis recently used against Emmett Macfarlane, a political scientist, on Twitter.

Lead photo via Facebook.

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