Two months after Virginia state Sen. John McGuire’s narrow victory over incumbent U.S. Rep. Bob Good in the 5th Congressional District’s Republican primary, and less than two weeks after a recount confirmed it, McGuire came to GOP voters with a message.
“We’ve got to, at this time, put our petty differences aside. It’s time to unite,” McGuire told a crowd at the August grand opening of a Donald Trump campaign office in Farmville. “If you voted for me, I love you, and if you did not vote for me, I love you.”
Fresh off the campaign trail of what he called a “spirited primary,” McGuire geared up for a general election against Democratic nominee Gloria Witt. If past is prologue, McGuire should be a shoe-in. The deep-red 5th District, which runs from Albemarle County to the North Carolina border, from Lynchburg to the suburbs of Richmond has only voted in a Democrat once in the past 20 years, and then only during the nationwide “blue wave” that swept Barack Obama into office; former Rep. Tom Perriello of Charlottesville served only a single term.
Experts say Witt is undeniably the underdog. But McGuire’s message of unity, a clear olive branch to those who voted for Good, may also be a sign that things are not so unified in the 5th District GOP. Now, with some Republican voters vowing to write in Good’s name, the biggest threat to McGuire’s campaign is no longer Witt, but his fellow Republicans.
McGuire’s campaign defeated Good by pursuing a clear strategy. In a district where former President Donald Trump is beloved, McGuire attacked Good as insufficiently loyal to the current Republican presidential nominee. Capitalizing on Good’s endorsement of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the presidential primary, McGuire called Good a “backstabber” and brought in MAGA surrogates, such as bombastic Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, to help spread the word.
The strategy worked, but only just, as McGuire ousted Good by some 366 votes.
And it came at a cost.
“My opponent has no integrity. He’ll lie, cheat and steal to win an election,” Good told The Daily Progress in May.
For many Republicans, McGuire’s attacks on Good, known in Washington as a hardcore conservative himself, were dishonest and beyond the pale. Good has spent years building loyalty among Republicans in the district, and those loyal to him did not want to see him challenged, much less defeated.
According to McGuire, the race was never personal. He says he had fun meeting people on the campaign trail, visiting hundreds of churches and building a coalition among the different factions of the party. But that coalition doesn’t include everyone.
“This was a bruising primary, so there are folks who would still like to see Bob Good elected by write-in ballot. But write-in ballots are notoriously prone to failure,” Rich Anderson, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, told The Daily Progress in September. “And as far as I can tell, Bob is not pushing that. Some of his supporters are.”
It is improbable that Good can win with a write-in campaign. A more precarious scenario is enough Republicans defect from McGuire, helping to propel Witt to victory.
Good has plenty of supporters, for instance, in the solidly conservative Appomattox County. How many of those Good supporters would write his name on their ballot is unclear.
Appomattox GOP Committee Chairwoman Robin Wolfskill told The Daily Progress after an Oct. 1 meeting that she wasn’t sure how many local Republicans might refuse to vote for McGuire, in part because she did not ask.
“A lot of people are probably still a little upset about how the primary went, but I don’t know what they’re going to do here. And I don’t want to know,” Wolfskill said with a laugh.
Former state Sen. Amanda Chase still expects McGuire to win in November, but she’s heard Good loyalists suggest that they may write in his name or perhaps even vote for Witt.
“Most of them are very upset he challenged Good,” Chase told The Daily Progress.
Witt recognized the Republican rift months ago. At a July rally in Charlottesville, she told The Daily Progress that conservatives in the district are “divided.”
“You either love McGuire or you hate him. You either love Good or you hate him. And I think it’ll play in my favor,” Witt said.
In late September, her campaign tried to capitalize on that division. In an email to supporters, the campaign linked to a Virginia Mercury story about Republican officials in the district being asked to sign a loyalty pledge.
“The Republican Party in Virginia’s 5th District is currently facing serious turmoil, with party leaders ousting their own members and engaging in fierce battles over loyalty pledges,” the email reads. “This deepening division continues to present us with unique opportunities to gain even more momentum for our campaign.”
Election Day will reveal just how deep those GOP divisions are. According to Miles Coleman, an editor at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, Witt would need thousands of Republicans to defect. Offering a comparison, Coleman noted Trump won the district in 2020 by 35,000 votes.
“That’s a decent chunk of votes,” Coleman told The Daily Progress. “To me, the Good write-in effort would have to pull a lot out — at least 5% of the vote. I don’t know if that’s realistic.”
The write-in campaign would carry more weight if it had Good’s backing, but the incumbent has not publicly endorsed it. Doing so would run afoul of party rules.
The Center for Politics still considers the 5th a safe Republican seat, but Coleman believes the write-in campaign adds some intrigue. He was struck that Witt outraised McGuire in the third quarter, with her campaign boasting more cash on hand.
The fundraising numbers may indicate the seat is so safe that many Republicans don’t see a need to donate. But it could also mean that Democrats see an opportunity to flip the district or that Good’s attacks against McGuire have had lasting damage.
“There were a lot of untruths told during that race,” McGuire told The Daily Progress in August. “All of his attacks were false. They were all false. He didn’t land any real hits. It was all false, but a lot of people unfortunately believe that.”
McGuire’s critics have pointed to a video recorded in January of last year in which McGuire, then running for state Senate in Virginia’s 10th District, said Good had “done a great job” and that he would “support Bob Good for reelection.” Just one week after winning his state Senate seat, McGuire announced he would challenge Good.
That rubbed Republican voters such as John Hinkle the wrong way. At the Appomattox GOP meeting in October, Hinkle told The Daily Progress that McGuire doesn’t keep his promises.
“The minute he got elected to the state Senate, he turned right around and started campaigning,” Hinkle recounted.
Coleman suspects that Good’s reputation as a “bomb-thrower and rabble-rouser” may have appealed to many Republicans in the district. Good was often criticized as a disrupter as a member and former chair of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus. Occasionally, that meant voting against bills supported by Trump. McGuire, meanwhile, has vowed to support Trump’s agenda fully.
“Like him or not, Good was seen as a fighter,” said Coleman. “And now you have McGuire maybe just phoning it in.”
For some McGuire supporters, to ever disobey Trump is a grave sin. Hinkle doesn’t see it that way.
“So [Good] voted for something Trump didn’t like. Big deal. That’s politics,” Hinkle said. “You don’t throw the baby out with the wash when you’ve got somebody who is a solid conservative that the people love.”
Hinkle voted early. He declined to say who he voted for but suspected McGuire may be in jeopardy. Not only does he think people will write in Good’s name, but he and others believe McGuire only won because he got support from Democrats. Now those Democrats, he said, will be voting for Witt. Ironically, McGuire’s supporters have theorized that it was Good who received support from Democratic voters in the primary.
David Toscano, who formerly represented Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County in the Virginia House of Delegates and served as House minority leader, told The Daily Progress that if Witt is going to win, she’ll need to change the mix of the electorate in the district. That means more Democrats turning out and more Republicans staying home.
Republicans in the Trump-loving district will likely turn out for the highly anticipated presidential election. But that doesn’t mean they’ll all vote for McGuire, particularly if they’re upset by how the primary played out.
“They may just say I’m going to vote for Trump, and then I’m going home,” Toscano said. “It’s very hard to predict that.”
McGuire has preached a message of unity since the primary. On Tuesday, he’ll learn if Republican voters heard it or if Good’s loyalists got their revenge.
“I can’t control people. I told my kids, you can’t control other people. You control yourself,” McGuire said. “But I think they see my work ethic, and they see my heart.”
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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