Fifth District GOP chair: “Where is John McGuire?”

The rift between Sen. John McGuire, R-Goochland, and party officials in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District widened further over the weekend after the Republican nominee failed to attend the district’s GOP committee meeting in Farmville on Saturday. 

McGuire’s no-show at the gathering, which has traditionally served as a critical opportunity for candidates to solidify party support for their congressional bids, prompted the committee to withhold funding for his campaign and urge him to provide the panel with important contact information, and details on event planning and related activities. 

In a letter to the campaign dated Sept. 6, Rick Buchanan, the district’s GOP chair, reminded McGuire that under the Republican Party of Virginia’s Party Plan, the committee “shall have general supervision over all district campaigns and shall cooperate with the State Central Committee in conducting statewide campaigns.”

Buchanan also notified McGuire that he had appointed a sub-committee of three party unit chairs “to work with your campaign to obtain, assimilate and distribute this information to all units within the 5th District so that efforts can be made to ensure success in November.”

Sean Brown, a campaign spokesman, said in a text message that McGuire was unable to attend Saturday’s committee meeting because he had already committed to door knocking events with the campaign of former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, and to appear at an event with volunteer firefighters. 

Brown said that he and Bri Simon, McGuire’s campaign manager, attended the committee meeting on the candidate’s behalf. He declined to comment further. 

During a closed portion of the meeting, the committee voted to allot $8,000 to pay for Trump campaign signs in the district, but it denied McGuire’s campaign any additional funding. 

“One of the reasons I believe for why the committee was hesitant was that John McGuire is nowhere to be found, he has not shown up at any unit meetings,” Buchanan said in a phone interview Monday. “Since the primary election he has only been to two unit meetings in Campbell County and Albemarle County out of 24 units.”

In contrast, U.S. Rep Bob Good, R-Farmville, the incumbent who was defeated by McGuire in the June 18 primary election, met with all 24 unit chairs within weeks of first winning his party’s nomination in 2020. 

But the disconnect between McGuire and the district’s party leadership predates the primary election. 

Just days after Trump formally endorsed McGuire in late May, 25 Republican officials advised the former president in an open letter to rethink his endorsement and to instead consider backing Good.  

“Congressman Bob Good has championed America First policies by introducing legislation to codify policies defunding chain migration and requiring that immigrants are self-sufficient. He also offered multiple bills that would build upon Trump’s regulatory relief for businesses across the country,” the letter said.

Good — who has not formally conceded to McGuire even after an additional review of the results of the recount that he had requested after the primary confirmed the former Navy SEAL’s victory — remains popular among some conservative hardliners in the district who have since launched an effort to urge voters to write in the incumbent’s name in the Nov. 5 election. 

While it remains doubtful that this effort will split the Republican vote in a way that would hand the Republican-leaning district to Gloria Witt, the Democratic nominee, it’s a sign of the unease that many Republicans still feel about McGuire, who they say has made little effort  to unify the party and campaign district-wide.

“McGuire seems to be running a fairly strange campaign, in my opinion, he does not seem very interested in doing the traditional things campaigns do,” said David Richards, a political science professor at the University of Lynchburg. 

“Perhaps the thinking is that in a district that rates a +7 to the Republican advantage he does not need to reach out very much. This may work out for him, but there is always a risk, and he needs to be sure he gets all of the Republican voters behind him lest Witt sneak in with a solid Democratic base that could win against a split GOP base.”

While McGuire on Monday made several campaign stops in the district with Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Hung Cao, the Republican U.S. Senate nominee, Buchanan, the district’s GOP chair, said in the phone interview that his committee is being kept in the dark about the campaign’s efforts. 

“There’s not a single thing on the district calendar of any events that he is doing, he’s not returning phone calls from the committee chairs who are trying to get him to come, and he’s not calling me or anybody that I know of. We’re very concerned, because I just don’t know what he’s doing. On Saturday, he couldn’t plan to spend 15 minutes addressing us in Farmville, which is in the very center of the district?”

Buchanan brushed off concerns that the committee’s support for McGuire is only lukewarm because most of the unit chairs remain supporters of Good, the incumbent.

“There is only one mission that all of our units have, and that is to get Republicans elected,” Buchanan said. “John McGuire is the Republican candidate. We have trained and organized to do just that, and build our networks around getting out the vote and manning the polls. But where is John? I don’t know where John is today, I have no idea.”