Good, who was unopposed for the chair position, was one of eight Republicans who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy from his House Speaker position in October, and Good has rankled some within the caucus for his outspoken support for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 GOP presidential race.
One member of the Freedom Caucus board, Ohio Rep. Warren Davidson, reacted to the elevation of Good as Freedom Caucus chair with a resignation letter.
“I ask that we consider how to best increase our influence while preserving our power to move policy in the right direction. I strongly feel that Bob Good as Chairman will impair that objective,’ Davidson wrote in a letter reported by Axios on Monday.
Good is a second-term congressman who represents Virginia’s Fifth District, which stretches from Albemarle County down Route 29 to the North Carolina border.
Good was a member of the wrestling program as an undergrad at Liberty University who later worked at his alma mater as an associate athletics director and made his first foray into politics in 2016 when he ran for, and won, a seat on the Campbell County Board of Supervisors.
Good won the Fifth District seat after a muddled drive-through GOP convention in the pandemic spring of 2020, defeating one-term incumbent Denver Riggleman, a Nelson County businessman who would later go on to serve as a senior technical adviser to the House Jan. 6 Committee that investigated the effort led by then-President Donald Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“It is my privilege and honor to serve as the next House Freedom Caucus chairman,” Good said in a statement on Tuesday. “I am committed to keeping our promises to the American people and fighting to reduce government spending, secure our borders, and defend our constitutional freedoms.”
As Good takes on this leadership role, he is also facing a challenge from State Sen. John McGuire, R-Goochland, for the 2024 Republican nomination in the Fifth District.
McGuire is trying to position himself to the right of Good, which would seem to be hard to do in any case, given Good’s record, but will be particularly difficult now, according to GOP strategist Aaron Evans/
“Good’s election as Chairman to House Freedom Caucus just likely derailed any plans McGuire has of defeating him in 2024,” said Evans, a Greene County resident who is the president of Winning Republican Strategies, a Central Virginia-based political consulting firm.
“Now that Good is officially the face of the Freedom Caucus, McGuire will have a much harder time convincing Republican voters that Good is a ‘RINO,’” Evans said. “This introduces some real messaging problems for McGuire, who has already been attempting to position himself to the right of Good. I imagine this is the last news McGuire wanted to wake up to and will make his path much more difficult to receive the Republican nomination.”
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Chris Graham
