Freedom Caucus chair locked in tight primary vs. Trump-backed challenger

Republican Rep. Bob Good, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, fought a fierce primary fight Tuesday night against an opponent backed by powerful Republicans, including former President donald trump and former president Kevin McCarthy.

Just a few hundred votes separate state senator John McGuire in the lead and Good right behind him in Virginia’s deep-red 5th District on Tuesday night. If the margin remains within 1 percentage point, the losing candidate may request a recount within 10 days of certification of the election results, according to Virginia state law.

Good risks becoming the first incumbent lawmaker to lose to a primary opponent this year.

On Tuesday night, Good asked his supporters to “keep the faith” in a long post about X.

“The entire DC Swamp was aligned against us with over $10 million in attack ads, but with your help we were able to make this race very difficult,” he wrote, praising his campaign’s early voting operation and noting that there is pending matches. -in and provisional votes.

“We are doing what we can to ensure we have teams of observers and legal advisors to ensure all votes are counted properly in the coming days,” Good added.

Good drew the ire of McCarthy, as did one of the eight Republicans who voted to remove him last year. McGuire far outspent Good on the airwaves, and outside groups aligned with McCarthy also outspent the Virginia congressman’s allies, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact.

“This is Kevin McCarthy’s revenge tour,” Good told NBC News on Friday at an event in Goochland, Virginia.

“He has apparently dedicated his life to trying to get revenge on those he holds responsible for not being Speaker of the House, except himself,” Good later added. “But the people of the 5th District will not be bought.”

McGuire also had the most coveted endorsement in the GOP primary: Trump.

McGuire thanked Trump on Tuesday night as he declared victory, despite the race remaining very close.

“This is a time when we need to come together because we still have a lot of work to do. I’m your Republican candidate, but I’m not going to take this lightly,” Good said at his election night party, according to a live broadcast of his election night speech from ABC13.

McGuire said Trump is “a big part of our victory and I won’t forget that.”

The challenger expressed things a little more in a statement from his campaign: “There are still a few votes left to count, but it is clear that all paths end in victory.”

The former president endorsed McGuire three weeks before Tuesday’s primary, making a veiled reference to Good’s support for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the presidential primary. Good’s subsequent endorsement of Trump wasn’t enough to put him in the former president’s good graces.

After endorsing McGuire, Trump appeared in a TV ad and held a televised rally for McGuire on Monday night, telling supporters: “John is running against Bob Good, who is no good. Despite the name, it is very bad for Virginia.”

McGuire, a former Navy SEAL whose campaign slogan was “We can do better than good,” told NBC News at a community concert in Powhatan on Friday that Trump’s endorsement was helpful in the race.

“A lot of people said, ‘I don’t know anything about you, I’ve never met you before, but if Trump is endorsing you, I have you,’” McGuire said. “I believe that with everything Trump has been through, he has earned the right to call the shots and pick his team.”

But Good is no stranger to running against a Trump-backed candidate. In 2020, Good defeated then-Rep. Denver Riggleman at a party convention, held in a drive-thru amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Oklahoma Republican Party Representative. Tom Cole was also on the defense Tuesday, but defeated his primary opponent in the primary, businessman Paul Bondar, who spent millions of dollars of his own money on the race. Cole, who chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee, received a boost from Trump in the race and recently told NBC News that Trump’s endorsement was “extremely helpful” as he faced the most competitive and expensive primary since he was first elected. time in 2002.

Bondar lent his campaign $5.1 million of his own money, launching ads that accused Cole of losing touch with the 4th District and spending too much time in the nation’s capital. Bondar also said that Cole was not conservative enough, pointing to Cole’s support for government spending and aid to Ukraine.

Cole and his allies blanketed the airwaves with advertisements accusing Bondar of actually being a Texan. Bondar owns property in Oklahoma outside the 4th District, but voted in the Texas primary in March.

Elsewhere in Virginia on Tuesday, Republican voters chose Navy veteran Hung Cao to face Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine in November, NBC News projects. Cao, who had Trump’s support in the race, led the Republican field in fundraising and defeated two other Republican candidates.

Cao ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2022, losing to Democratic Representative Jennifer Wexton by nearly 7 points. He will face a tough race against Kaine, who is running for a third term in a state that has sent Democrats to the Senate in recent years. Biden won the state by 10 points in 2020 and Kaine won a second term in 2018 by 17 points.

In the House, Democrats are also choosing a candidate to face Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans in the 2nd District, and both parties are choosing their nominees in the open 7th and 10th Districts.

Retired Army Colonel Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman is expected to win the Democratic nomination in the 7th District, giving Democrats a high-profile candidate with military experience and strong fundraising abilities. by Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, another strong fundraiser with national security experience, to run for governor.

Vindman gained national notoriety during Trump’s first impeachment trial when he and his brother raised concerns, from their position on the National Security Council, about Trump’s phone conversation with the Ukrainian president in 2019. Despite being a first-time candidate, he was by far the best fundraiser in the race and received support from outside groups on the airwaves when running against more experienced local politicians.

He will face Derrick Anderson, a former Green Beret, who defeated former Navy SEAL Cameron Hamilton in a clash between the establishment and insurgent wings of the party. Anderson was backed by a super PAC linked to McCarthy and Republican megadonors, as well as House Speaker Mike Johnson.

In the 10th District, state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam is expected to win the crowded and expensive Democratic primary in Virginia’s 10th District, where Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton is not seeking re-election after being diagnosed with a rare and serious condition called progressive supranuclear palsy.

Subramanyam won Wexton’s endorsement, which helped him separate himself from a crowded field of well-funded Democrats that included state Del. Dan Helmer, former state Assembly Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn and former Department of Defense official Krystle Kaul. He will be in charge to hold the district for the Democrats in the fall, as Democrats have performed well recently in this suburban Washington D.C. district, and will face Republican businessman and lawyer Mike Clancy.

Kiggans will face Democrat Missy Cotter Smasal, a military veteran who was supported by all Democratic members of the Virginia House. This is a swing district that will likely be competitive in the fall, but Kiggans has a significant fundraising advantage and defeated a Democratic candidate there to win the seat in 2022.

Georgia also held its primary runoff elections in which no candidate received a majority of primary votes in March.

In the Democratic-leaning 2nd District, activist Chuck Hand, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, lost the runoff for the Republican nomination.

And Trump’s former White House political director, Brian Jack, is expected to win the GOP primary runoff against state Sen. Mike Dugan. The Republican will be the heavy favorite to win in November to replace retiring Republican Representative Drew Ferguson.

This article was originally published in NBCNews. with