Bob Good wants a recount, but can he afford it? (2024)

John McGuire’s victory in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District GOP primary over incumbent Bob Good was very close, but not so close that the state will pay for a recount.

And while Good has said he will pay for a recount himself, he is running out of time to raise the substantial money required by Friday’s deadline.

“I don’t think he has the money to do it,” one senior GOP aide, granted anonymity in order to speak candidly, told The Daily Progress. “I’ll be surprised if he pulls it off.”

Two weeks ago, Good’s campaign said that it had already raised thousands of dollars in donations and that it would pursue a recount once the state certification was completed.

State election officials completed that certification on July 2 as scheduled, confirming that McGuire had edged out Good by just 374 votes in a bitter contest that split Republicans across the sprawling, deep-red district.

But with that certification date come and gone, and while his campaign insists it has the money, Good still has not filed for a recount.

“The Department of Elections has not received official word that a recount petition has been filed,” Brian Tynes, a spokesman for the department, told The Daily Progress.

The deadline to file a petition with the state is July 12.

“We have money for a recount,” Good’s campaign manager Diana Shores told The Daily Progress. “We will petition the state in the timeline required by the law.”

But the fact that the campaign has not actually filed a petition raises questions about whether Good’s team is still scrambling for funding.

“If he has the money, why hasn’t he filed yet?” said the senior GOP aide.

If McGuire’s margin of victory was 0.5% or less, Virginia law would require the state to pay for a recount. But the margin was 0.6%, meaning Good will have to foot the bill himself.

There are several variables that affect the cost of a recount, and while the Department of Elections does not provide cost estimates, it’s clear the price tag is high.

Good began to fundraise days after the June 18 election, when in an email he told donors that the campaign needed “to raise $100,000 immediately to succeed in our recount challenge.”

With less than a month between Election Day and the filing deadline, it’s a substantial amount of money to raise in a short amount of time.

Good raised $1.15 million over his entire campaign cycle, taking in nearly $350,000 over the first nine months of 2023. Donations increased in the final quarter of the year, with bigger contributions rolling in as there were whispers that McGuire was planning to launch a challenge. Half of the total fundraising came in 2024 after McGuire had announced his candidacy.

It was the most money Good ever raised in a Republican contest, but largely out of necessity; in his previous two nominations, Good won via convention, a contest where only a few thousand delegates are permitted to cast a ballot, meaning a campaign only has to appeal to a few thousand people. Good raised less than $200,000 in 2020 when he ousted incumbent Denver Riggleman.

But this year the nomination was decided in a state-run primary, which allows every registered voter in the district to partake. As a result, campaigns must get their message out to more people. That messaging — often in the form of television advertisem*nts — is expensive.

The $1.15 million brought in by Good’s team this cycle is easily the most he’s raised in a GOP nomination contest. Still, McGuire edged him out slightly, raising $1.2 million, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.

The need to bring in far more money than he had in previous contests posed a new challenge for Good. Now he finds himself having to raise even more.

“This is the first time he’s actually had to raise money,” said the senior GOP aide, referring to Good running in a primary as opposed to a convention.

One longtime Good supporter, Carolyn Ley, expects that the incumbent will be able to scrounge up enough donations to cover the cost of a recount.

“I believe Bob is doing this out of respect for his volunteers and supporters. Essentially, he is making certain all of the I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed,” Ley told The Daily Progress. “He is walking it all the way to the finish line. It’s a compelling situation and people will give.”

On the campaign trail, Good has boasted about his grassroots support, noting that much of the money raised by his campaign comes through small individual donors. But that poses a problem for him now as he is faces a hefty price tag and a fast-approaching deadline. The senior GOP aide doesn’t believe there are any large donors Good can immediately turn to who could write big checks to cover most of the recount cost.

“He doesn’t have a plethora of donors who can make that happen. He has a lot of small donors, but translating that into wire money out the door is a tall task,” the aide said. “If he had someone who was willing to finance [the recount], it would’ve happened.”

Instead, Good will have to collect many small donations from many different individuals. And he will have to convince them to donate to a cause that is unlikely to change the outcome of the race.

Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics told The Daily Progress that even though the race was close, the odds of a recount changing the result are slim.

“The prospects of success are not good. There’s a reason why the state pays if it’s within 0.5%, because that’s within the range you might expect to find some error to change the process.”

Last week, Good wrote on social media that his team would “move into a recount.”

“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,” Good wrote, a nod to other comments he’s made in the days after the election making unsubstantiated claims that the vote was somehow rigged against him. “We will vigorously pursue that objective over the coming days and weeks, as permitted by Virginia law.”

While the statement makes clear that he is “pursuing” a recount, it does not fully commit to a recount happening.

“I don’t know if he’s hedging or not,” said Kondik. “I don’t know how open the donors are or aren’t to this. It’s not nothing in terms of the money he needs to raise.”

The clock continues ticking as Good — who heads the hard-right House Freedom Caucus — looks to a possible recount as his last hope at clinging on to political power.

McGuire’s team does not expect a recount to change the result and sent an email to supporters shortly after the election was certified calling his victory “the honor of a lifetime.”

“I thank Bob Good for his service. Now, it is time for citizens of the 5th to unite. Whether or not you voted for me in the primary, I humbly ask for your support in November,” reads the email.

McGuire will face Democrat Gloria Witt in the general election. He enters the race as a clear favorite in a district where Republicans often win with comfortable margins. The last Democrat to represent the 5th was Charlottesville’s Tom Perriello in 2011.