Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) is wading through the fallout from his decisions — namely, to endorse Florida Gov. Rob DeSantis (R) over former President Donald Trump to take the White House and his vote to oust Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from his position as House Speaker.
With the former president, some of his key allies and McCarthy’s Majority Committee PAC backing GOP primary challenger John McGuire in the race for Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, Tuesday night showed just how disastrous Good’s decisions could be for his future in politics.
McGuire, a state senator, declared victory Tuesday night — though the race still has not been called.
“There are still a few votes left to count, but it’s clear that all paths end with a victory,” McGuire wrote in a post to social platform X overnight.
But Good, who is chairman of the far-right House Freedom Caucus and considered one of the House’s most conservative members, clearly isn’t giving up the fight.
“We are in a period where the law provides a process for evaluating the accuracy of all the vote totals from election day to ensure everyone can have full confidence in the certified results,” Good wrote in a post to X Wednesday afternoon.
“We are asking for full transparency from the officials involved and patience from the people of the 5th District over the coming weeks as the certification of results is completed.”
“We believe we can still prevail,” he added.
The election outcome may not be known for days. Some election analysts have noted that vote changes aren’t unusual in Virginia during the assessing of mail-in, provisional ballots and recounts. Wednesday also marked Juneteenth, a federal and state holiday in Virginia, so many regular offices were closed.
Dave Wasserman, an analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, noted online that McGuire holds an edge by just 300-something votes as of election night, and the ultimate outcome “will be very close.”
The winner of the GOP primary will go on to face Democrat Gloria Tinsley Witt in the general election in November for the deeply conservative district.
