Denver Riggleman is leading a new effort called Republicans for Tom Perriello, though, not trying to be cheeky here, Riggleman is about as much a Republican today as I am.
The Perriello campaign for the Fifth District congressional seat rolled out the new voter group on Monday.
It wouldn’t have had less cachet, and would have certainly been tons more accurate, if they’d just called it Former Republicans for Tom Perriello.
There are more of those Former Republicans out there these days, with the president’s approval ratings in the low 30s.
Anyway.
From the archives
- Coverage of the Fifth District congressional race: click here.
“John McGuire has failed us. He has voted for a war in Iran that has cost tens of billions of dollars and raised gas prices, he voted to block the release of the Epstein files multiple times, and he voted to explode the federal debt by $4 trillion. This election is a referendum on sanity, and Tom wins that hands down,” said Riggleman, who represented the Fifth District, as a Republican, for a single term, from 2019-2021.
Riggleman got bounced in the 2020 primary season by a guy farther to the right, Bob Good, who went on to serve in Congress for two terms, before running afoul of Team Trump for somehow not being Trumpy enough, despite voting 100 percent MAGA for his four years in Washington.
Voting 100 percent MAGA didn’t help Good overcome having endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 presidential cycle.
This led the Trumpers, in the name of exacting petty revenge, to back John McGuire, who is somehow even Trumpier than Good still is, or Riggleman briefly was, in the 2024 GOP primary in the Fifth.
Riggleman, incidentally, fully reformed after getting squeezed out by Good in 2020 – going on to serve as a technical advisor to the House Jan. 6 Committee, which is more than any of the hardcore Dems reading this article can ever dream to have been able to do to try to kneecap Trump.
“D or R should not be the final deciding factor in Virginia. John McGuire falls short of our conservative principles. The Fifth Congressional District election should be about who best embodies the Virginia Way and puts the interest of middle-class families first. Tom Perriello is that man,” Riggleman said in a statement released by the Perriello campaign on his behalf on Monday.
Others announced as being part of this (Former) Republicans for Perriello group include:
- Selim Bingol of Albemarle County, who served as press secretary to former Arizona Rep. and Sen. Jon Kyl, a pre-MAGA conservative.
- Harry Frazier of Albemarle County, a former staffer to S. Sen. John Warner.
- Tommy Hill, a former chair of the Charlottesville Republican Party.
Ehhh, I mean, Jon Kyl was a conservative congressman and senator, but more on the low-tax side.
John Warner would be a left-of-center Democrat today.
A former GOP chair in Charlottesville is like being a former Democratic chair in Waynesboro.
Ahem. I’m a former Democratic chair in Waynesboro; the Maytag repairman saw more action than I did as the Democratic chair in Waynesboro.
“I’m honored to have Denver and so many people who have spent years supporting Republican candidates willing to stand with me,” Perriello said. “We aren’t going to agree on everything. But we can agree that Washington needs more common sense, more independence, and a lot less corruption. I want to represent everyone in this district, including the people who don’t vote for me.”
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Chris Graham
