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A spokesman for state Sen. John McGuire said Wednesday that the Republican from Goochland will not participate in what would have been the first and possibly only candidate debate in one of the most contentious GOP primary battles nationwide this year.
McGuire’s response comes after the Amherst County Republican Committee announced that the senator would face his opponent, Rep. Bob Good, R-Campbell County, on a debate stage at Sweet Briar College at 7 p.m. May 20 for the first time after half a year of dealing each other blows on social media, during campaign speeches and in interviews.
“We are not going to be participating in an event that is meant to prop up Bob Good’s failing campaign rather than inform voters on the issues. They released dates without confirming with our campaign, they changed terms and format of the debate after agreements were in place,” the spokesman said, referring to some members of the Amherst GOP Committee, the event’s organizer.
According to the rules to attend the forum, all cellphones must be turned off, and photography and video recording are prohibited. Tickets are $10, with no refunds.
Since McGuire’s announcement last fall that he would challenge Good — made less than a week after he won his race in the newly created 10th Senate District where he’d run unopposed — the lawmaker has scolded Good for his endorsement of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis one year ago. The congressman, who has represented the 5th Congressional District since 2021, changed his endorsement to Trump after DeSantis dropped out in January.
McGuire’s decision to challenge the incumbent congressman despite his assurances that he would focus on his new state Senate seat sparked the ire of many Republicans in the district. But a new internal poll released by his campaign Tuesday shows him ahead of Good by a comfortable 14-point margin.
“Frankly, there is little left to debate, and it is being reflected in the polls,” McGuire’s campaign spokesman said. “Bob is never-Trump, John is an unwavering supporter of Trump. Bob serves himself, John is running to serve the people of the 5th District.”
A few weeks ago, the Amherst County GOP Committee initially announced a candidates forum with both lawmakers for May 13 — the same day that the Virginia General Assembly is set to reconvene in Richmond to vote on the state’s biennial budget.
Last week, McGuire alleged on the Jeff Katz Show, a conservative talk radio show on WRVA in Richmond, that the Amherst Republicans, in collusion with Good’s campaign, purposely picked a date on which they knew he would be unable to attend.
“Imagine this, if you’re in a campaign, and your opponent puts out a date and something on Facebook saying you’re going to have a debate, but they never checked with your campaign if that date is available. That’s called a trap,” McGuire said on the show. “They did do that, and of course they did it on a date that Governor [Glenn] Youngkin has us come back to work on the budget. It’s just a trap, it’s a trick.”
But John Ruff, the chairman of the Amherst GOP, said that his committee had first tried to get the original May 13 date cleared “with everybody locally, mostly with Sweet Briar with graduation and everything going on.”
While neither campaign had confirmed to attend on that date, there “wasn’t any effort to trap” McGuire, Ruff said.
“It wasn’t anything like that,” he said. “We were just trying to get a date nailed down so we could start working with people and put things together. And then as we did announce the date, the Senate got called back to session, so we moved it to the 20th. There wasn’t anything vicious, we weren’t trying to hurt anybody.”
Ruff said that McGuire’s allegations on the radio show that he was being trapped came as “a total surprise” to the committee. “I was sad to hear him say that on the radio show, because it made us look like we were not trying to be fair and stuff. I’m trying to get them both before everybody, I think everybody should have good information and make their own decision.”
Diana Shores, Good’s campaign manager and senior political advisor, in an email denied allegations from McGuire’s campaign that her team had colluded with the Amherst GOP to get McGuire to decline the invite.
“The Amherst Committee put out the initial notice [for the candidates forum], and not Good for Congress. Of course, when the date was set and being advertised publicly, our supporters began to share the information on social media,” Shores said.
Shores said she believes that McGuire is “making an issue about the debate because he knows he will perform poorly” and he wants to get ahead of the story and blame the committee.
“He’s done everything he can to avoid speaking at local committee meetings and events, and had zero presence at the [recent] 5th Congressional District Convention. He wants to avoid the ‘worker bees’ of the party, because they don’t support him,” Shores said.
McGuire said on the Jeff Katz Show last week that he’d welcome debating his opponent.
“He’d be foolish to debate me, because he would have to explain his indefensible behavior about betraying Trump [and] betraying his constituents and betraying our country. There is no way he could defend himself, but if he wants to put himself in that position, hey, that would be great.”
But the McGuire campaign spokesman said a member of the Amherst GOP Committee has warned the campaign that the panel has colluded with Good’s campaign in order to make it difficult to attend the debate.
“I think the strategy is to get yall [sic] to back out,” the committee member said in a text message that the McGuire campaign shared with Cardinal News..
With less than six weeks until the June 18 primary elections, the window for both candidates to debate each other in a wider public setting is closing.
Shores, Good’s spokeswoman, said that her campaign has accepted an invite from Katz to appear on his talk show with McGuire in the coming weeks. “We’ve submitted five dates to the Jeff Katz show, three of which, so far, have presented conflicts for our opponent. We have not heard back regarding the other two dates,” Shores said.
The McGuire spokesman said that the proposed dates “conflicted with existing events” on the campaign’s calendar.