During Virginia’s primaries on Tuesday night, Trump’s tour of getting even ran into trouble.
After he made the terrible mistake of supporting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the Republican presidential primary, the former president backed retired Navy SEAL John McGuire, a GOP state senator and opponent to Bob Good.
In a scene fit for a sitcom, both Virginians rushed to get Trump’s approval and went to his hush money trial in New York on the same day last month to try to get it.
Things were not going well for the MAGA candidate as of Wednesday morning. There were only 309 votes between McGuire and the other candidate, and the race is still too close to call. This is not the kind of blowout that a Trump-backed candidate should have, especially in an area with a lot of rural voters who lean Republican.
It’s a surprise because it looked like the chances were against Good. Trump was against him, and so was Kevin McCarthy, who used to be Speaker of the House and gave $10,000 to McGuire’s action group. That money was Good’s way of thanking Matt Gaetz and six other Republicans for getting rid of McCarthy as speaker in October.
Many of Good’s traits are similar to those of the Tea Party extremists who led the conservative side of the House Republican conference before Trump. This should have made him a great candidate for MAGA.
He beat a Republican who had been in office for a long time and had watched over a same-sex wedding in 2020. After a year, Good said on the House floor, “Nearly everything that is wrong with our society is because we don’t follow God’s law and his rules for and definition of marriage and family.”
But Trump stopped liking him after he backed DeSantis. It was also caught on video last year that Good told someone privately that Trump might lose to Biden.
But the Good-McGuire race shows that Trump can’t always clearly hit his enemies and get rid of them so that he can replace them with supporters.
Also, it looks like a good number of people in Good’s area like how he always holds Republican leaders accountable. The primary on Tuesday shows that many people want to reward his good behavior by keeping him in Washington by voting against Republican bills and causing gridlock in the House.
If Good wins the primary, the Republicans are expected to keep the House seat in November. The seat is rated as “Safe Republican” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
That’s good news for Republicans in the House, but Trump would lose if Good wins.
If Trump wins and the Republicans take over the House, Good will not feel he has to follow the rules if he thinks it means betraying conservative views. Good has always voted against Republican spending bills and even against helping Israel, even though most Republicans have always supported those ideas.
Good morals Conservative ideals include being responsible with money and having balanced budgets.
If Trump becomes president, Goodwill not agree with him if he thinks that Trump’s spending bills will break the budget.
But the Virginia lawmaker is one of a small group. Even Republicans like Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, who used to complain about raising the debt limit, now vote for it without any problems. Because they are loyal to Trump, no one can criticize them. People like Ken Buck in Colorado and Justin Amash in Michigan, who cared about economic values instead of Trump’s showmanship or denying the election, are no longer in office.
Good fought hard in the primary, though, which shows that there are still people who want this kind of Republican.
And the close race shows that Trump’s support does not automatically mean success. During a possible future government, Goodwill have a lot of power against Trump if he manages to win in Virginia. He can now always say that people in Virginia’s 5th district chose him, even after Trump chose a rival.
Source: The Independent
