The Virginia State Board of Elections on Tuesday certified the results of the June 18 GOP primary election in which Sen. John McGuire, R-Goochland County, defeated Rep. Bob Good, R-Farmville and the chairman of the powerful House Freedom Caucus, by a mere 374 votes out of 62,792 cast.
The board’s move cemented McGuire’s victory in the Republican-leaning 5th Congressional District that was home to one of the most watched and most expensive primary battles nationwide this year. McGuire had made his campaign a referendum on which candidate is a more loyal supporter of former President Donald Trump.
In a statement released after Tuesday’s meeting, McGuire thanked his campaign team, his family and the former president for their support.
“We could not have done this without my wife Tracy, our incredible team, and of course Trump! This is the honor of a lifetime,” McGuire said. “I look forward to continuing our fight for Virginia families every day in Congress. I humbly ask for your support in November, both for my campaign and for President Donald J. Trump. Without Trump and a Republican Congress, we will lose our great country.”
Good made clear after the election that he would not concede, but his push for a delay of the certification remained unsuccessful. In a fundraising email five days after the election, he demanded “a full forensic audit of this election, including a hand-count and reconciliation of the actual paper ballots versus the voting machines.”
Virginia does not have an automatic recount law, and while McGuire’s 0.6% lead puts Good within the 1% margin that would allow him to request a recount at his campaign’s expense, it remained above the 0.5% threshold that would require localities to pay for it. There also is no provision for a hand-count under state law.
With the certification of the election complete, Good now has 10 days for his next step.
“Now that the preliminary certification of the primary election has concluded, we will move into a recount,” Good said in a statement Tuesday evening. “In a race with nearly 63,000 votes that is separated by a 0.6% margin, Republican voters across the 5th District deserve to know that all legal votes have been accurately counted. We will vigorously pursue that objective over the coming days and weeks, as permitted by Virginia law.”
Good had drawn Trump’s ire after endorsing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president more than a year ago. But despite his return to the Make America Great Again fold on the day DeSantis ended his campaign in January, and the continued support from most elected party officials in the district, the incumbent found himself facing pushback from voters in a district where the former president won with 53% of the votes in both 2016 and 2020.
In late May, Trump formally endorsed McGuire, and he held a tele-rally for the candidate on the eve of the primary election.
“John is running against Bob Good, who is not good,” Trump said during the 10-minute call. “He, despite his name, really has been bad for Virginia and bad for the country.”
“He fought us on so many different things that would have been so good,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee continued. “If he’s reelected, he will stab Virginia in the back, sort of like he did with me. He stood against things that everybody would have wanted and always made it difficult. He is not a very popular guy, I will tell you that. And people fight him all the way, because he’s just worth fighting, and he just let us down.”
On the campaign trail, McGuire has accused Good of “hating Trump” and being a “Never-Trumper” and a “RINO” — a derogatory moniker for “Republican In Name Only” — who is working to help Democrats. He has also alleged that the incumbent has been a divisive politician whose positions in Congress, including his key role in ousting former Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year, have damaged the Republican brand.
Although McGuire ended election night with a 327-vote lead — a margin of 0.52% — that continued to increase as more votes were counted, Good didn’t waste any time to openly question the legitimacy of the election.
On X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, the congressman claimed that fires at three different polling locations in Lynchburg and in Albemarle and Hanover counties on primary day had caused temporary evacuations of the precincts, hinting at potential foul play.
But investigations of these incidents later revealed that there were no actual fires and that fire alarms had been triggered at each location.
Good also cited problems that occurred in several precincts in Albemarle and Buckingham counties during the canvassing as a basis for requesting a recount. And in Lynchburg, election officials temporarily paused counting post-election ballots after they discovered some ballots in a drop box on the Friday after the election that should have been collected before the voting deadline on June 18.
“This should not be certified until these concerns are obviously investigated and adjudicated accordingly,” he said on “Bannon’s War Room,” a podcast hosted by his ally and former White House strategist Steve Bannon within days of the election.
Daniel Bruce, an attorney representing McGuire’s campaign, told members of the elections board on Tuesday that the registrar and the electoral board in Lynchburg thoroughly investigated the issue.
“The registrar prepared a report that indicated members of the registrar’s staff did not observe any ballots being placed in that ballot box after election day,” Bruce said. “In the end, we are talking about seven ballots from that drop box, nowhere near enough to change the result of this election where John McGuire leads Bob Good by nearly 400 votes. We are confident in the integrity of this election and the legitimacy of the result.”
Also on Tuesday, the elections board certified the result of the Democratic primary in the 5th District, where political newcomer Gloria Witt, a businesswoman and community activist from Amherst County, won her party’s nomination in a three-way contest. Witt will face McGuire in the general election in November.
The board also approved the nomination of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Hung Cao, who will take on Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., on Nov. 4 after overwhelmingly defeating four GOP contenders in the statewide GOP party primary.
