RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The Virginia State Board of Elections on Tuesday confirmed the apparent narrow defeat of Republican Rep. Bob Good, one of America’s most conservative members of Congress, to a challenger nominated by former President Donald Trump in the state primary on June 18.
The board’s unanimous vote to certify the results doesn’t end the matter, however. Good, who chairs the far-right House Freedom Caucus in Congress, has said he will request a recount now that the state has declared his opponent, Sen. John McGuire, the winner of the primary in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District.
The margin of victory certified by the Electoral College was about 375 votes out of nearly 63,000 cast, or 0.6 percentage points. That falls within the 1% margin that allows for a recount. But because the margin is greater than 0.5 percentage points, Good will have to pay the cost of a recount himself.
Last week, AP said the outcome was too close to predict because a recount was likely.
Good has said he will pursue both a recount and legal action to block a McGuire victory. On social media, he called for a “do-over” in the city of Lynchburg, the largest city in the district and a Good stronghold, citing alleged irregularities there.
Good and others allege the city botched the vote count by accepting ballots from a ballot box after election night.
The Lynchburg County Clerk has said that due to a procedural error, seven ballots were retrieved from a drop box on the Friday after the election instead of on Election Night. However, the clerk said they believe the ballots were dropped off on Election Day and that no one saw any of the seven ballots dropped off after Election Day.
Good’s campaign also expressed skepticism in a social media post about three fire alarms that went off at polling stations in three different counties on Election Day.
“AI estimates the probability at 0.0000000318%,” the campaign said.
Virginia Elections Commissioner Susan Beals said during Tuesday’s meeting that the fire alarms were triggered by maintenance work at schools where polling places were located. She praised the work of election officials to secure ballots and said workers “made sure no voters were turned away.”
She said there are always problems with election administration, “but these are not systemic issues that call into question the results of our elections.”
During Tuesday’s meeting, an election lawyer representing the McGuire campaign, Daniel Bruce, said there was no reason to doubt the results, despite efforts to undermine confidence. Bruce noted the complaints about the Lynchburg drop box and said that “at most, we’re talking about seven votes.”
“We have confidence in the integrity of the election and the legitimacy of the results,” Bruce said.
No one from Good’s campaign spoke at Tuesday’s meeting. Good’s campaign manager, Diana Shores, said in an email that Good is still committed to asking for a recount.
Now that the results have been certified, Good’s campaign has a 10-day period to file a petition for a recount in one of the 5th District courts.
Shores said the campaign cannot yet share information about where they will submit their petition.
Both Good and McGuire are among Republicans who have raised concerns about the integrity of the election following Trump’s false claims of voter fraud in his 2020 re-election defeat. Good was among more than 100 GOP House members who voted in January 2021 to object to the Electoral College count in states Trump contested.
During a conference call with Trump on election night, McGuire urged his supporters to give him a margin of victory that was “too large to manipulate.”
If Good loses, he would be the first sitting House member nationwide to lose a primary this year, with the exception of one race in which two incumbents faced off due to district redrawing.
The race between Good and McGuire underscored the party’s tensions and was seen as a test of Trump’s hold on the GOP electorate. Trump branded Good a traitor for endorsing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the Republican presidential nominee.
In November, both Republicans would be favored over the Democratic candidate, Gloria Witt, in a district that is overwhelmingly conservative.
