Virginia Setback: MAGA Candidate Fails to Secure Win, Leaving Trump Red-Faced

On Tuesday night, during the state’s primaries, Donald Trump’s retribution tour encountered an obstacle in Virginia.

After incumbent Bob Good committed the unforgivable sin of supporting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the Republican presidential primary, the former president nominated retired Navy SEAL John McGuire, a GOP state legislator and opponent of Good.

In a scene fit for a sitcom, the two Virginians had fought for Trump’s favor by showing up to his hush money trial in New York on the same day last month in an effort to win it.

Things weren’t looking good for the MAGA candidate as of Wednesday morning. With only 309 votes in the lead, McGuire’s race is still too close to declare. This is hardly the kind of landslide victory that a candidate endorsed by Trump should experience, particularly in a region with a large number of rural, deeply reddish areas.

The result is unexpected because it felt like the deck was stacked against Good. Not only was former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy opposed to him, but McCarthy’s political action committee also provided $10,000 to McGuire. That money was retaliation for Good’s assistance in deposing McCarthy as speaker back in October along with Matt Gaetz and six other Republicans.

Good, who resembles many of the Tea Party hellraisers who controlled the conservative wing of the House Republican conference even before Trump came around, should have fit right into the MAGA mold.

Image – The Atlantic

In the 2020 race, he defeated an incumbent Republican who had presided over a same-sex marriage. A year later on the House floor, Good said: “Nearly everything that plagues our society can be attributed to a failure to follow God’s law and his rules for and definition of marriage and family.”

However, once he backed DeSantis, Trump turned against him. Additionally, Good was seen on camera last year suggesting that Biden might defeat Trump in a private discussion.

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However, the Good-McGuire debate shows that Trump isn’t always able to destroy his supposed adversaries and remove them in order to bolster the ranks of the Republican Party with supporters.

It also appears that a sizeable number of people in Good’s district like that he consistently holds Republican leadership to account. Rather than facing consequences for opposing Republican legislation and creating stalemate in the House, Tuesday’s primary indicates that a significant number of people favor maintaining him in Washington.

Good is probably going to retain the Republican House seat in November if he wins the primary. The non-partisan Cook Political Report rates the seat as “Safe Republican .”

While House Republicans will be pleased with this development, Trump would not be pleased with a strong win.

If Trump wins and Republicans control the House, Good will not feel the need to fall in line if he thinks he is betraying conservative values. Despite Republicans’ largely resolute backing, Good has continuously voted against Republican spending legislation and even against providing help to Israel.

Virtues Conservative principles such as balanced budgets and fiscal restraint.

In a potential Trump administration, Good won’t fall in with the former president if he thinks Trump’s spending bills will bust the budget.

But the Virginia congressman is in a dwindling number – even Republicans who once complained about debt ceiling increases, like Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, now vote debt limit increases without consequence. They are immune to criticism because of their loyalty to Trump. Conservatives who did care about fiscal values, and not for Trump’s grandstanding or election denial like Ken Buck in Colorado and Justin Amash in Michigan, are gone.

But Good’s valiant primary fight shows there is still a constituency for this type of Republican.

And the close contest shows that a Trump endorsement is not an automatic guarantee of victory. If Good somehow pulls off a victory in Virginia, he will have considerable leverage against Trump in a potential future administration. Now, he can always say that voters in Virginia’s 5th district preferred him even after Trump anointed a challenger.