With barely three years under his belt in Congress, Rep. Bob Good, R-Campbell, has risen fast in national conservative circles.
The ex-Liberty University official and Campbell County supervisor gained a seat in Congress in 2020 after knocking off incumbent congressman Denver Riggleman, R-Nelson, in a drive-thru convention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Riggleman’s sin? He had officiated at the same-sex wedding of two campaign volunteers.
In October, Good was one of eight far-right House members who ousted GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy. In December, Good won the chairmanship of the House Freedom Caucus — the 42 most conservative House members on Capitol Hill.
But a looming question in 2024 is, will Good be able to hang onto that title? For that he needs to hold onto his seat in Congress, too. Increasingly, it looks like he’s in danger from the MAGA faction of his own party.
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State Sen. John McGuire, R-Goochland, is challenging Good for the GOP nomination. The ex-Navy SEAL and three-term state delegate announced in November he would seek the GOP nomination in the 5th District. (That was only days after voters elevated McGuire to a seat in Virginia’s Senate.)
Though Trump hasn’t yet endorsed in the June 18 primary, McGuire boasts MAGA bona fides. He proudly attended the “Stop the Steal” rally Jan. 6, 2021, tweeting a photo of himself. He also marched to the U.S. Capitol (but has been charged with no crime). Rudy Giuliani, a close associate of ex-President Donald Trump, recently endorsed McGuire.
Also recently, McGuire teased Good by traveling to Mar-a-Lago in Florida, having his photo taken with ex-president Donald Trump and then posting it on X (formerly Twitter).
In the minds of Trump supporters, Good’s unpardonable sin was his endorsement of Florida Gov. Ron Desantis for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, rather than Trump, who now appears to have the Republican nomination sewed up.
The jockeying in the pro-Trump district smacks strongly of MAGA retribution. (Good has fingered the GOP speaker he helped oust, Kevin McCarthy.)
After DeSantis dropped his presidential campaign in January, Good quickly flipped his endorsement to Trump. But as reported by Cardinal News, that might have been too late.
By then, Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita had vowed in a text that, “Bob Good won’t be electable when we get through with him.” Ouch!
Good’s next humiliation was a foot-shot that occurred late in February, at the grand opening of a Trump store in Farmville owned by Karen Angulo, a former Appomattox GOP chair. She accused the congressman of trespassing.
Invitations for the event noted McGuire would be campaigning there. Somehow, Good received one. Then he texted his own grand-opening invite to his supporters, featuring a photo of himself with Trump.
In a statement later issued by McGuire’s campaign, Angulo said Good was informed he wasn’t welcome the night before. He showed up anyway. A reporter for The Daily Beast captured their confrontation on video.
“I’m saying that you do not have an invitation to hijack the store and interrupt another event that was scheduled here,” Angulo tells Good in the video. “So I’m asking you to leave … You’re trying to hijack my store without permission to do your campaigning.”
To fight against the “Never Trump” label, Good’s imported nationally prominent Republican allies to his campaign events. A stop in Scottsville late in March was one example.
Alongside Good that rainy morning were former congressman Mark Meadows (Trump’s fourth White House chief of staff) and Reps. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida; Andy Biggs, R-Arizona; Chip Roy, R-Texas; and Andrew Clyde, R-Georgia. That’s quite a cast of characters.
Clyde is the congressman who, months after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, attempted to redefine it as a “normal tourist visit.” Gaetz escaped indictment in a teen sex-trafficking scandal in Florida but remains the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation.
Both Gaetz and Biggs vainly asked Trump for pardons before he left office, according to testimony before the Jan. 6 Select Committee. And Meadows remains under indictment along with Trump in Georgia’s election-rigging case.
This month, Good dug even deeper into MAGA politics by endorsing a convicted Jan. 6 rioter from West Virginia, Derrick Evans, for a seat in Congress over one of GOP colleagues, incumbent Rep. Carol Miller.
“We need true, courageous conservative warriors like Derrick Evans,” Good wrote in a statement.
So the 5th District GOP primary is shaping up as a contest between a Jan. 6 protestor and an incumbent who’s endorsed a Jan. 6 rioter.
Andy Parker, a gun-control activist from Collinsville who unsuccessfully sought the 5th District Democratic nomination 2022, called it “a contest between crazy and crazier.”
Some well-known Virginia Republicans agree. One is Riggleman, who worked for the Jan. 6 Committee after he left Congress. He called Good and McGuire “two amoral stains on America’s underwear.”
In a March 31 post Riggleman wrote: “Good is a crazy stooge for the local committees & a conspiracy believing Christian nationalist. Done nothing for the district–Couldn’t beat me in a primary so the committee voted for a convention. Everyone knows why …
“I despise the coward. He still might be better than McGuire.”
The same day, Riggleman reposted a selfie of McGuire posing at the Jan 6. “Stop the Steal” rally. It lambasted McGuire as “a panting sycophant who will do anything to win. A box of hammers with a love of power.”
On April 4, Riggleman tweeted: “The Republican Main Street Partnership decides to enter an election denier (Good) vs. election denier (McGuire) race in VA. If they had a shred of decency or love for the USA they would support ANYONE AGAINST these two amoral stains on America’s underwear.”
And Riggleman’s hardly the only disenchanted Virginia Republican.
“This is not a contest between ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys,’” former two-term lieutenant governor Bill Bolling wrote in an April 5 column for the right-leaning politics website, Bearing Drift.
“I honestly don’t care who wins this nomination, which will be decided in a Republican primary election on June 18th. I’m just enjoying the fight between Good and McGuire, neither of which deserve to represent the people of the 5th district in Congress.”
Bolling ended with this:
“This race shows that no one is safe when unbridled political ambition meets up with extreme right-wing ideology and the demand for an unwavering commitment to Donald Trump.”