June 20, 2024 11:07 AM UTC

Bad for Good Would be Trouble for Boebert

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• by: Colorado Pols

As we inch closer to Tuesday’s Primary Election in Colorado, we’re keeping an eye on the still undetermined outcome of a key Republican Congressional Primary in Virginia that could have some interesting implications for the much-maligned House Freedom Caucus, which claims Rep. Lauren Boebert as a member.

Congressman Bob Good, the Chair of the House Freedom Caucus, still doesn’t know if he is the first incumbent Member of Congress to lose a bid for re-election in 2024. As The Associated Press explains:

Good currently trails state Sen. John McGuire by a little over 300 votes as elections officials finalize their vote counts and mail-in ballots continue to trickle in…

…As one of the most conservative congressmen in the country, Good might be impervious to a primary challenge under normal circumstances. But he earned Trump’s wrath when he endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president. He switched back to Trump after DeSantis dropped out, but Trump endorsed McGuire and called Good a backstabber.

McGuire’s lead of roughly 300 votes translates to a margin of about half a percentage point out of more than 62,000 ballots cast. Once the results are certified, Virginia law allows for a recount if the margin of victory is less than a percentage point. If it’s within half a percentage point, the recount can be conducted at the state’s expense.

McGuire has already declared victory, which seems a bit ridiculous, and there are plenty of Republicans who really want to believe that this race is over. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon are among the Republicans in Congress who are doing some early celebrating. While Bacon is tired of Good because of his penchant for throwing wrenches in gears, Greene is still salty about being kicked her out of the House Freedom Caucus last year following her verbal House Floor spat with Boebert.

As for Boebert, she endorsed Good for re-election and appears on his website as a supporter, alongside the standard list of right-wing weirdos such as Reps. Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, and Chip Roy; as well as Senators Rand Paul and Rick Scott.

As POLITICO reports, that endorsement put Boebert at odds with her orange hero Donald Trump and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy:

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) squared off with a primary challenger backed by former President Donald Trump and has faced millions in negative ads. But it wasn’t the blowout that one would expect when a candidate has nearly every major player in his party against him. Hours after the polls closed on Tuesday, the contentious battle between Good, the rabble-rousing House Freedom Caucus chair, and state Sen. John McGuire in Virginia’s 5th District was far closer than widely anticipated, with a winner potentially not coming for days…

…The coalition assembled against Good included everyone from former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Trump, to a sitting member of the House Freedom Caucus that Good chairs. But that still wasn’t enough for a decisive victory, with McGuire only narrowly leading as of early Wednesday morning, with the race too close to call.

McCarthy and other Republicans are mad at Good for getting in the way of just about everything in Congress, while Trump’s anger was more reliably self-serving. If Good can pull out a victory, that could be very, um, bad for Republican efforts to actually accomplish a thing in Congress:

…if Good does survive, he will return to Congress even more emboldened to hijack the GOP leadership’s legislative agenda and endorse the primary rivals of his House colleagues. [Pols emphasis]

Now former-Rep. Ken Buck was Colorado’s only other House Freedom Caucus member, until he was kicked out because of a poor attendance record at the clubhouse. Even after being removed from the Freedom Caucus, however, Buck “only had praise” for Good, as POLITICO reported in March.

Boebert is almost certain to be the Republican nominee to replace Buck in CO-04, but she’s running out of allies in Congress; it’s safe to say her job would get a little more complicated if Good isn’t able to keep his seat.