Francis Chan/POLITICO/AP
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good spoke to reporters outside the U.S. Capitol on April 19, 2024.
CNN
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The outcome of the Republican primary between Virginia Rep. Bob Good and state Sen. John Maguire, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus that angered allies of former President Donald Trump and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, was still unknown Tuesday night.
Good, the congressman representing Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, has faced fierce attacks from a broad base of Republicans trying to oust him in what has become the most expensive House Republican primary this term. As one of the architects of the effort to oust McCarthy last fall, Good drew the ire of McCarthy’s allies, who spent millions of dollars seeking revenge. Good also lost the support of Trump after endorsing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Republican presidential primary.
As of late Tuesday, Maguire and Good were separated by less than a percentage point, enough for the second-place candidate to call for a recount. Mail-in ballots could continue to arrive until Friday.
Good acknowledged the circumstances of Tuesday night’s race.
“Right now we are waiting for the final results of today’s primary election,” he wrote to X. “While we wait, I want to thank everyone for their support so far. You all made sure to vote.”
CNN projects that Eugene Vindman, a retired Army colonel and a key figure in President Trump’s first impeachment, will win the Democratic primary in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District.
Vindman is seeking to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger in a tight race this fall for House Republicans’ slim majority.
Vindman and his twin brother, retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, are best known for their role in the impeachment trial for raising concerns about a 2019 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump reportedly called for an investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Alexander Vindman was a star witness in the 2020 impeachment hearings, and the twins, who served on the National Security Council, became heroes to Democratic activists opposed to the former president.
Vindman’s role in the impeachment of President Trump likely changed his campaign: While most of his primary opponents were current or former officeholders, the first-time candidate had raised $5 million by May 29, according to federal records, nearly four times the total raised by the other six Democrats in the race combined.
Retiring Rep. Spanberger is vacating her seat to run for governor next year. The former CIA officer won a third term in 2022 by five percentage points.
Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a veteran Republican who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, is expected to fend off a tough primary challenge in the state’s 4th Congressional District, CNN predicts.
Mr. Cole is expected to win a four-way primary that also includes insurance broker Paul Bonder, who has donated more than $5 million to Mr. Cole’s campaign through May 29 and run television ads.
Cole, a longtime Republican activist, had the backing of former President Trump, but Bondar has positioned himself as a more conservative alternative to the veteran congressman and has tried to undermine Cole’s ties to Trump by running ads highlighting Cole’s donations to Trump’s rivals before they ran for president in the 2024 Republican primary.
First elected to the House in 2002, Cole has easily won primaries in previous elections. He has maintained close ties to the House’s conservative wing, voting against the certification of parts of the 2020 election results and twice voting against impeaching President Donald Trump.
“He has almost always voted with me, including on the two impeachment hoaxes,” Trump said in an endorsement of Cole in early May.
Perhaps the most unusual thing about Tuesday’s race was Bondar’s new connection to Oklahoma. After spending most of his career in Illinois, Bondar moved to Texas in 2020 and lived in a Dallas suburb where he voted in this year’s Republican primary in March. He then launched his congressional campaign in Oklahoma in April. Bondar’s early in-person vote in the primary was the first time he’d ever voted in Oklahoma, according to state voting records. Cole’s allies ran ads questioning Bondar’s residency.
Americans 4 Security, a super PAC supporting Cole, aired a 30-second ad comparing the primary to the Red River rivalry — a notoriously bitter contest between the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas — and touting Cole’s longtime ties to San Gorgonio, including his graduation from Oklahoma, and describing his opponent as “Paul Bondar, a Texan from Dallas trying to buy the Oklahoma seat.”
“Don’t let the Longhorns take our Sooner seats,” the ad said, referring to the mascots of both schools.
The Bondar campaign responded with ads claiming that the challenger owns a home in Oklahoma and has purchased 500 acres in Caddo “to build his dream home.” The ads feature the previous owner, Cheyenne Stanley, saying he sold both properties to the Bondars, selling the first one “about two years ago.”
This story has been updated with additional reports.
