Test Election for the Far Right

A contested election in Virginia shows that Republicans are more deeply divided than Donald Trump would have you believe. For once, he is supporting the party establishment there.

Clapping dutifully, they stood behind Donald Trump’s podium, the Republican senators, between them a few female senators, and let him rave about the “tremendous unity” that he had brought to the party. It was the designated presidential candidate’s first visit to the Capitol since he sent his supporters to Washington to storm it on Jan. 6, 2021. At the end of last week, more than anything, Trump wanted to show that he is calling the shots now.

The months of bitter squabbling before the election, in which challenger Nikki Haley in particular had gone after the front-runner, should be over now. That is all in the past now, Trump is signaling; even Haley has since said she will vote for him in the fall, though she previously had argued for months that someone like him cannot expect the country to accept him again. At their meeting in the House, representatives serenaded him for his 78th birthday.

Close Allies Are Suddenly Opponents in That State

Even in this extraordinary Trump era, such contemplative scenes are never more than a cardboard backdrop for the notoriously chaotic collection of individualists who call themselves the Grand Old Party. On Tuesday, Republicans are facing a primary election that again reminds us that countless lines of conflict run through the party.

Trump has brought wide parts of the apparatus under his control. But now he is suddenly facing close allies as opponents in Virginia because he is opposing a far-right candidate in favor of a challenger who promotes the party establishment.

Of all people, the boss of the influential Freedom Caucus, the far-right group in the House, once Trump’s most important flag bearer in the Capitol, must fear for his office. Bob Good won his seat in the House for the deep red part of Virginia in 2020, likewise after fierce intraparty strife. Back then, Good pushed a member of the Freedom Caucus out of office, a Christian conservative who married two gay staffers to the displeasure of his party and voter base.

Now, a similar fate could befall Good. It also concerns the question of how far right the party delegation will position itself. And whether the electorate has to fear that extreme Republicans could paralyze Congress even more after the November election as they have already done since claiming the majority in the House in the midterm elections. It was due to blackmail by the Freedom Caucus that Congress delayed a decision on weapons for Ukraine and argued for months over the budget. In the process, the right-wing representatives even ousted their own speaker, Kevin McCarthy.

‘You’ve Got To Fight Fire with Fire’

Good was one of the eight rebels who turned against McCarthy. The Californian has long since left Washington, but he continues to assert his influence in the background when it comes to collecting donations for expensive campaigns. He is behind a campaign that built up another candidate against Good, John McGuire, a former member of the Navy Seals and currently a senator in the Virginia General Assembly. Numerous Republicans have pledged their support for him in order to weaken the far-right wing of the party. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, for instance, told Politico that he would not usually participate in campaigns like this, but: “You’ve got to fight fire with fire.”

However, the arm of the party establishment is not as long as it once was. For example, recently in South Carolina, an effort to defeat Rep. Nancy Mace in the primary election was unsuccessful; she too belonged to the rebels. But the likely decisive difference from Good is that Mace got behind Trump.

Conversely, Good dared to start a fight with the strong man in the party and supported his rival, Ron DeSantis, at the beginning of the presidential campaign. Good has since come crawling back and has endorsed Trump, who acknowledged this with the words “too late.” Now, Trump is promoting the establishment candidate despite the fact that other close allies from the Freedom Caucus like Matt Gaetz and Byron Donalds vouch for Good.

Establishment candidate McGuire is in the role of the favorite now. It is uncertain who will win because Republicans in Virginia will hold the primary election at the ballot box for the first time*. However, it is foreseeable that after the Tuesday primary, Trump will praise his party’s tremendous unity.

*Editor’s Note: Bob Good narrowly lost the primary to the Trump-backed John McGuire.