RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Conservative U.S. Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., is asking for “patience from the people of the 5th District in the coming weeks” as he hopes the final count of ballots from Tuesday’s primary doing so will allow him to fend off a challenger backed by the former president Donald Trump.
Good, chairman of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, currently trails state Sen. John McGuire by just over 300 votes as election officials complete their vote counting and mail-in ballots continue to trickle in.
The Associated Press has not called the race for either candidate.
If Good loses, he would be the first sitting House member to lose a primary challenge this year, with the exception of one race in which two incumbents faced off over redistricting.
As one of the nation’s most conservative members of Congress, Good might be immune to a primary challenge under normal circumstances. But he earned Trump’s wrath when he endorsed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for president. He switched back to Trump after DeSantis dropped out, but Trump endorsed McGuire and called Good a backstabber.
McGuire’s lead of roughly 300 votes translates into a margin of about half a percentage point out of more than 62,000 votes cast. Once the results are certified, Virginia law allows a recount if the margin of victory is less than one percentage point. If it is within half a percentage point, the recount can be conducted at the state’s expense.
In a social media post Wednesday, Good said the race remains too close to call.
“Provisional ballots and mail-in ballots also still need to be counted. We ask for full transparency from the officials involved,” he said.
Both Good and McGuire are among Republicans who have raised concerns about election integrity in the wake of Trump’s false claims of voter fraud during his 2020 reelection defeat. Good was one of more than 100 Republican House members who voted in January 2021 to to object to the Electoral College count of states that Trump disputed.
During a pre-election conference call with Trump on Monday, McGuire urged his supporters to give him a margin of victory that is “too big to manipulate.”
