June 2024 is going to be a busy time in Virginia.
We have two congressional districts where there are already 11 candidates each lined up to run in primaries.
In the 7th Congressional District along the Interstate 95 corridor between Richmond and Northern Virginia, five Democrats and six Republicans are running for their party nominations. This is the seat that Democrat Abigail Spanberger now holds, but she’s not seeking reelection so she can run for governor in 2025.
In the 10th Congressional District in Northern Virginia, eight — yes, eight! — Democrats and three Republicans are queued up. This is the seat that Democrat Jennifer Wexton now holds, but she’s retiring for health reasons.
And then there’s the Republican U.S. Senate primary, where at least 10 candidates are seeking their party’s nomination for the right to challenge Democratic incumbent Tim Kaine.
In fields with that many candidates, almost anything can happen. The wildest primary, though, maybe in a race with just two candidates (so far): the 5th Congressional District, where state Sen.-elect John McGuire, R-Goochland County, hasn’t even waited to be sworn in before launching his next campaign. Not long after Election Day, he announced he’s challenging U.S. Rep. Bob Good, R-Campbell County, for the nomination.
Good is easily the most conservative member of Virginia’s congressional delegation; he was one of the eight Republicans who brought down House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and this week he was named chairman of the House Freedom Caucus. I’d always thought it possible, maybe even likely, that Good might see a nomination challenge from a more mainstream conservative. However, McGuire is exploring uncharted territory by trying to challenge Good from his right — by alleging that Good is insufficiently loyal to former President Donald Trump.
It is true that Good has endorsed someone other than Trump; he’s backed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. McGuire says this means Good is a “RINO Never Trumper” who has “betrayed” the former president. The use of the “RINO” epithet here is, um, interesting. It’s meant to be a conservative insult to those centrists who are considered “Republicans In Name Only,” but Good is hardly a centrist.
A slight diversion: The best sports nickname for a team that never existed was the Hampton Roads Rhinos, a proposed National Hockey League expansion team. Alas, the Rhinos got body-checked into the glass when the Hartford Whalers relocated to Raleigh in 1997 to become the Carolina Hurricanes, thus depriving the sports world of a unique moniker and and awesome logo. But I digress.
Hockey, though, looks pretty tame compared to what’s already happening in the McGuire-Good race.
Good has somehow managed to earn the enmity of one of the country’s best-known far-right members of Congress: Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
Last week Greene tweeted that “Bob Good is another disloyal fake MAGA Trump traitor.”
The context was a video of Good speaking at a campaign event in Mineral on Oct. 21 and posted last week on a YouTube channel called “Cardinal State.” Of note: That is not us, and it’s unclear who is behind that channel, which was created Dec. 6 and has no other content.
In the video, Good can be seen and heard talking about why he’s not backing Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024: Trump, Good says to an unseen listener, “might be the only person that can lose to Joe Biden. If he’s the nominee, and I don’t criticize him, you’re asking me privately, I don’t say this in public.” DeSantis “is, in my view, more of a true conservative and I can give you example after example.” For instance, Good says, “Trump blamed pro-lifers for the election loss back in November. Ron DeSantis passes the heartbeat bill in Florida and Trump is saying we’re going to back off on abortion.”
Later in the video, Good says, “Trump did red flag laws when he was president and DeSantis has concealed carry in Florida.” Good goes on to offer his view of the political landscape: “I decided to endorse DeSantis in May because I felt, you know what? I can’t sit by and watch and then regret that we nominated Trump. And we may well do it. And then as the lawsuit, I’m sorry, the prosecutions, in the courts, and I’m fearful as he carries that baggage because there are some parts of our party who won’t vote for Trump. But as the convictions, as the charges, mount, I’m fearful for our ability to win. And I want eight years.”
This seems to me to be a very sound assessment. Trump does carry a lot of baggage, there are some Republicans who will never vote for him, and Republicans do run the risk of nominating a candidate so loaded down with criminal charges (whether they think them warranted or not) that they wind up losing a race they otherwise ought to be able to win, given voters’ poor view of Biden.
Whoever is behind this “Cardinal State” account apparently thinks otherwise, because the video clips are interspersed with subtitles – “Bob Good: Trump is Not a True Conservative” and “Bob Good: We’ll Regret Nominating Trump” and, ultimately, with “Bob Good: Only ‘Good’ For Trashing Trump.”
Some viewers might watch that and think, “Gosh, Good is a more reasonable guy than I realized.” But this video is presumably not intended for those viewers, it’s intended for a pro-Trump audience that might see this and regard Good as an apostate.
That’s clearly how Greene views him. She tweeted out the video, saying: “Bob Good caught trashing Pres Trump. Bob Good was endorsed by Pres Trump, which is the only reason he won in 2020. Bob Good is another disloyal fake MAGA Trump traitor.”
(I’d dispute that Trump’s endorsement was “the only reason” Good won in 2020. The key political event in the 5th District that year was Good ousting incumbent Denver Riggleman in the Republican convention. Trump endorsed Riggleman. Trump later endorsed Good in the general election but, given the conservative nature of the district, Good would have been the favorite even without it. Greene is simply factually wrong there.)
McGuire has seized on this video.
Last week he sent out an email noting that Good had recently said, “I challenge you or anyone else to find my criticism of Donald Trump.” Whether Good’s comments that day in Mineral, in which he told someone “privately” why he thought Trump would be a problem for Republicans, constitute criticism you can decide. But here’s what McGuire had to say: “In my announcement to challenge Bob Good for Congress, I pointed out Bob Good is a RINO never Trumper. This is a point Good and his Cronies often deny. Bob Good calls people who disagree with him liars all the time. Watch this video and you decide who is telling the truth.”
In my experience following politics, when one candidate questions the truthfulness of another, that’s usually toward the end of the campaign, not the beginning. The Good-McGuire campaign isn’t even a month old and already we’re at this stage — with six more months to go. What is this campaign going to be like come next June? Quite entertaining for political analysts like me, I suspect.
There are still some big things about this race we don’t know yet. Among them:
- McGuire is obviously trying to capitalize on the pro-Trump sentiment among Republicans in the 5th District. That makes political sense. However, will 5th District Republicans buy that Good is anti-Trump? And what will the sentiment be come next June? By then, Trump could be on the verge of clinching the Republican nomination — or a convicted felon. Or both.
- Will Trump make an endorsement? It’s one thing for McGuire to endorse Trump, it would be quite another for Trump to return the favor. If he does, how much would that change the race? Or would it change things at all? Remember that Trump endorsed Riggleman in 2020 and that didn’t stop Good from winning the nomination.
- Will any other candidates emerge? Will some mainstream Republican (I may be going here with an outdated definition of mainstream, I realize) look at the prospect of Good and McGuire splitting the vote and think there’s an opportunity to defeat both of them? If so, this contest will become a lot more interesting than it already is.