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.
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In the 2020 race, he defeated an incumbent Republican who had presided over a same-sex marriage. “Almost 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,” stated Good on the House floor a year later.
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.
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.
Furthermore, it seems that a sizable portion of the populace in Good’s constituency appreciates that he continuously keeps the Republican leadership responsible. 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.
If Good believes he is violating conservative principles, he won’t feel pressured to comply if Trump wins and Republicans take control of the House.
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.
If Good believes that Trump’s spending proposals will blow the budget, he won’t support the former president in a future Trump government.
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But the number of congressmen from Virginia is declining; Republicans who had previously voiced concerns about debt ceiling rises, such as Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, are now voting in favor of debt limit increases without facing any repercussions.
Because of their loyalty to Trump, they are immune to criticism. Like Ken Buck in Colorado and Justin Amash in Michigan, conservatives who cared more about sound fiscal principles than Trump’s political posturing and denial of election results are no longer with us.
However, as demonstrated by Good’s courageous primary campaign, there is still support for this kind of Republican.
