Good, McGuire locked in tight race in Va.’s 5th District GOP primary (2024)

The eventual nominee will go on to face Democrat Gloria Witt — the projected winner of her party’s three-way primary Tuesday — in November’s general election, which Republicans are heavily favored to win.

At his election watch party on Tuesday night, McGuire declared victory, despite no call having been made in the race. “It is an honor to be your Republican nominee,” he said, as the crowd erupted into cheers.

“The entire DC Swamp was aligned against us with over $10 million in attack ads, but with your help we were able to make this race too close to call,” Good wrote on X just before 11 p.m. “We implemented the best early voting operation that the 5th District has ever seen, and we are still waiting for the results of mail-in ballots and provisional ballots. ... No matter the outcome, you’ve shown the DC Swamp that you won’t back down from standing for what’s right.”

Good drew a primary challenge from McGuire (Goochland) — and the ire of the 45th president — for initially endorsing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president in May 2023, backing Trump only after DeSantis dropped out in January. Trump blasted Good, endorsed McGuire, made a TV ad for the challenger and headlined his tele-rally the eve of the primary.

“If he’s reelected, Bob Good will stab Virginia in the back like he did with me,” Trump warned on the phone-in rally Monday evening.

For a party accustomed to moderate-vs.-MAGA primary battles, the McGuire-Good contest represented more offbeat internal warfare, with two ultraconservatives fighting over who is closer to Trump. Both have Trump’s name plastered alongside their own on campaign signs across the district — despite, in Good’s case, a cease-and-desist letter from the former president’s campaign, which claims the pairing falsely implies that the congressman had his endorsem*nt.

Drawing a stunning $10.7 million in outside spending — third-highest for any House primary nationally this year, behind two New York contests, according to money tracker Open Secrets — their clash has played out at the opening of a Trump merchandise store in Farmville, inside the Lynchburg megachurch on the campus of Liberty University and outside the Manhattan courthouse where Trump was convicted in a hush money trial.

“If you get down to the weeds of it, Congressman Good has been that extremely conservative voter that he said he was going to be throughout the entirety of his time in office. It seems that his only sin was that he did not support President Trump from the very beginning,” said Aaron S. Van Allen, an associate professor of law and public policy at Liberty University’s Helms School of Government. “The big issue at the heart of this is merely allegiance to President Trump.”

At the same time, Good has made enemies in his party’s establishment wing as a member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus. Good played a key role in ousting Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from the House speakership. His reputation as an unyielding conservative — one willing to blow up bipartisan deals on foreign aid, for instance, or risk government shutdowns to make a point on federal spending — allowed him to assume leadership of the group, which even some fellow GOP conservatives consider obstructionist and damaging to the party’s reputation.

McCarthy allies have bankrolled a blitz of TV ads attacking Good and boosting McGuire. So have moderate Republican groups such as the Defending Main Street super PAC that do not ordinarily gravitate toward flamboyant MAGA cheerleaders like McGuire, who has had enormous Trump flags fluttering from the back of his Ford pickup since 2016.

McGuire led Good slightly in fundraising — $1.2 million to Good’s $1.1 million — but enjoyed about $1 million more in support from outside groups, whose spending exceeds what the candidates have raised by a factor of 10.

The establishment support for McGuire gave Good an opening to paint his challenger as a RINO (Republican in name only), while McGuire claimed Good’s DeSantis endorsem*nt made the incumbent an anti-MAGA insider. The claims and counterclaims could confuse voters and highlight the GOP’s “issues with the truth,” said David Richards, chair of the political science department at the University of Lynchburg.

“It’s not as if a real moderate or a real RINO candidate has popped up,” he said. “It’s purely along [the lines of] who is Trump’s bestie for reals. And in my mind, that’s just kind of strange.”

Wearing a navy blue Liberty University baseball cap Tuesday, Good greeted voters at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Lynchburg, a couple of miles from campus, making last-minute appeals to constituents who squarely told him that they were listening to the former president and voting for Good’s opponent.

“I’m disappointed that the president is listening to people who are absolutely lying to him,” Good said. “For people to say I don’t support President Trump, I’ve supported him for eight years. They know I’m supporting him now.”

Outside the church, campaign supporters stood in front of red signs for McGuire and Good — the key distinction in them: a blue field on McGuire’s signs that read “Trump Endorsed.” Good said his record and status as an incumbent would convince voters to reelect him, but he acknowledged the challenge he faced.

“That’s not to say millions of dollars on spending, lies and distortions, and dishonest ads, and a high-level endorsem*nt has no impact; I won’t pretend it doesn’t have an impact. But I don’t think it’ll be the deciding factor,” he said.

McGuire — sporting Trump’s signature look: blue suit, red tie — greeted voters at the polls early in the day but by early afternoon found himself stuck in the state Capitol in Richmond, where the state Senate was meeting in a special session on a college tuition waiver program for the families of military veterans. With senators deadlocked, McGuire got the chance to make a speech.

“I’m supposed to be out campaigning right now,” he said, “but our veterans are so important I had to come and support them.”

As soon as the session wrapped up at nearly 5 p.m., McGuire rushed out of the chamber and called his aide to see how many more precincts he could get to before the polls closed. “Where are you, man?” he said into his phone while heading down the steps.

Good, 58, is a former Citibank banker and an athletic fundraiser for his alma mater, Liberty University, a Christian conservative touchstone in a district that stretches east to the Richmond exurbs and south to the North Carolina line. Good first went to Congress four years ago after unseating Rep. Denver Riggleman, a fellow Republican who inspired the challenge by officiating a same-sex wedding.

McGuire, 55, is a former Navy SEAL known in the Richmond area for founding a popular physical fitness business based on boot-camp-style workouts. He broke his neck in a trampoline accident and has made his recovery part of the story he shares as a motivational speaker. McGuire won election to the Virginia House of Delegates in 2017, a year after Trump won the White House, and claimed a seat in the state Senate last November. He irked some Republicans in the district for taking on Good just days after winning his Senate race, breaking a promise he made during the campaign not to challenge Good.

McGuire counts himself among Trump’s earliest and most ardent supporters, attending Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally in D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, but stopping short, he says, of storming the Capitol. He later promoted a local showing of “2000 Mules,” a discredited film that purports to show voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Good often calls Trump “the greatest president of my lifetime.” He voted against certifying the 2020 election, echoed the falsehood that fraud cost Trump that race and rallied outside the Justice Department to demand answers about the treatment of Jan. 6 defendants.

A self-described biblical conservative, Good was secretly videotaped saying said he endorsed DeSantis because the governor is more of a “true conservative” than Trump on some issues such as abortion and gun control.

There is a chance that plays well with voters in a conservative district, but given the choice between ideology and Trump, Republicans have tended to favor Trump, said Alex Keena, a Virginia Commonwealth University professor of political science.

“I don’t even know what role ideology plays anymore,” he said. “It is really a cult of personality, and it seems to be the faction that’s winning now in the Republican Party.”

For Pam and Mike Ross of Lynchburg, it came as no surprise last month when Trump endorsed McGuire, potentially undermining Good. “Trump said ‘[Good] stabbed me in the back.’ I mean, he has a vendetta,” Mike Ross said. “He’s gonna go after people that go against him.”

The couple, who said they voted for Good, identify as “strong Republicans” but are wary of a second Trump term. They said they remain undecided on how they will vote in the general election this fall, citing their concerns about the former president’s personal morals and embrace of nationalism.

With Trump and his allies directing money and resources behind McGuire in the contest, voter Esther Thulin said she was swayed to vote for McGuire by campaign mailers that came to her house assailing the congressman.

“I can’t remember, but I was saying it doesn’t look good,” she said. “It said he was a Republican badmouthing Republicans.”

Trump and political attacks aside, Daniel Markley, 33, said he voted for McGuire partially because of his background as a Navy SEAL, noting that his brother also serves in the armed forces. However, Markley said, the main issue that motivated him was the state of the economy and wanting to see a change in Congress.

“Gas is horrible. My grocery bill at the store is ridiculous. My dollar went so much further four years ago,” he said. “I don’t blame them as much as possibly the president, but it’s a big thing.”

Vozzella reported from Richmond. Gregory S. Schneider contributed to this report from Richmond.