Tuesday evening’s biggest race still has no winner.
Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) faced off against a primary challenger backed by the former president Donald Trump and has faced millions of negative ads. But it was not the blow you would expect when a candidate had almost all the major players in his party against him. Hours after the polls closed on Tuesday, the contentious battle between Good, the incendiary chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, and Sen. John McGuire in Virginia’s 5th District was much closer than widely expected, with a winner possibly only days away. would come.
Another high-profile challenge to an incumbent in Oklahoma also failed, and a handful of battleground battles took place in Virginia, setting the stage for high-dollar contests over the next five months.
Here’s what happened during Tuesday’s busy primaries:
The incumbents are still tough to beat
The coalition that assembled against Good included everyone from the former chairman Kevin McCarthy and Trump, to a sitting member of the House Freedom Caucus that Good chairs. But that still wasn’t enough for a decisive win, as McGuire was only narrowly leading as of early Wednesday morning and the race was too close to call.
It was a somewhat surprising result. McGuire was better financed and had Trump’s all-powerful support. His struggle suggests that the power of the incumbent remains strong.
And if Good survives, he will return to Congress with even more courage to hijack the Republican leadership’s legislative agenda and support his colleagues’ main rivals in the House of Representatives.
Elsewhere, another Republican incumbent passed his challenger. Former Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, a major figure in the House Republican conference and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, easily won reelection against his self-financing challenger Paul Bondar, meeting the 50 percent threshold needed to pass a prevent the second round.
Cole, who has been in power for more than two decades and had Trump’s support, is expected to win in this deep-red district in the fall despite being outspent and outspent in these primaries.
Bondar’s loss is just the latest flashpoint in how challengers running to the right in safe red districts continue to falter this cycle as major GOP forces — including Trump at times — get in line to stop mobs who could further disrupt the caucus.
Otherwise a good night for the establishment
In addition to Bondar’s defeat, the Republican establishment continued its winning streak and defeated potential troublemakers.
In Virginia’s 7th District — where Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger is running for governor next year — Republican Derrick Anderson, a former Green Beret who ran unsuccessfully for the seat in the midterm elections, prevailed in a crowded primary of the Republican party. He was clearly the establishment’s favorite: he earned the support of Speaker Mike Johnson – one of many two dozen challengers who earned his endorsement this year — and the House GOP-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund spent more than $100,000 to boost him in the primaries.
Meanwhile, his most prominent challenger, former Navy SEAL Cameron Hamilton, received support from members of the Freedom Caucus. He came in second place.
National Republicans are doing their best to ensure they will too avoid candidate quality problem they faced in the midterm elections – especially in battleground states, where candidates further to the right may struggle in the general election – and have been largely successful.
But there are future tests on the horizon, as early as next week. The Congressional Leadership Fund this week began spending money in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, a red-leaning seat, to block Ron Hanks, a Republican candidate with a controversial past who could win an otherwise uncompetitive seat for Democrats. to stake. Democrat Adam Frisch, who gained national attention after nearly flipping Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert’s seat in the midterm elections, is running again for the district, and national Democrats have tried to give Hanks a boost.
Trump, who was largely aligned with party leadership when it comes to supporting candidates, scored another victory that increases the strength with Hung Cao, who will face Democratic Senator Tim Kaine in Virginia in the fall. (Trump has built a mostly strong record despite some losses in recent weeks.) Kaine is the early favorite, but Trump has claimed the state will be competitive in the fall.
And Trump’s favorite candidate — his former aide, Brian Jack — also triumphed in the runoff in Georgia’s third district, a deep red seat that all but guarantees he will join the Republicans.
But it wasn’t just the Republican establishment that had a good evening.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s preferred candidate, veteran Missy Cotter Smasal, overwhelmingly won the Democratic primary in Virginia’s swing 2nd District to face Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans, one of the few Republicans representing a district that President Joe Biden won in 2020. Kiggans starts the general election with a strong financial advantage.
And in Virginia’s 10th District, a blue seat, the outgoing Democratic Rep. candidate won. Jennifer Wexton – state Senator Suhas Subramanyam – and defeated a crowded field. He will be the favorite when he faces Republican technology director Mike Clancy in the fall.
Democracy is central
Eugene Vindman, a former national security official and Trump-era whistleblower who helped spark the former president’s first impeachment, has received the Democratic nod in Virginia’s 7th District and will face Anderson.
Vindman is one of the nations top fundraisers, appealing to party donors — largely from out of state, a rarity for a first-time candidate — with his story of upholding democracy during the Trump era. During his campaign he noted that he “sacrificed his military careerto take on Trump.
Vindman’s victory — and national appeal — is a reassuring sign for Democrats who continue to rely on the message of democracy and question its relevance more than three years after the riot at the Capitol. Biden’s campaign relies heavily on such messages, as recently as last week Attacking Trump about the riot and accused him of trying to ‘burn’ democracy.
Vindman was not the only Democratic candidate who focused on the message of democracy. Earlier this year, former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who rose to prominence after testifying before the Jan. 6 select committee, lost his bid for Maryland’s 3rd District. Yet Biden’s campaign is using Dunn as a surrogate on the roaddemonstrating how the president’s team views this as a core message.
Vindman won just under a majority of the vote, along with a half-dozen other candidates on the ballot, including former Secretary of State Elizabeth Guzmán, Secretary of State Briana Sewell and county Supervisors Margaret Franklin and Andrea Bailey — all women of color.
Ally Mutnick contributed to this report.
