Bob Good is already sowing doubt about his primary election and promising a recount

Republican Rep. Bob Good has begun sowing doubt about the integrity of his extremely tight Virginia primary election, raising questions without any evidence as he vowed to take the race to a recount.

Tuesday’s election has been too close to call for days, with vote counts showing Good trailing his opponent, state Sen. John McGuire, by a few hundred votes. More provisional and mail ballots are expected to come on Friday that could help determine whether Good can overcome his current deficit.

And Good isn’t exactly patiently waiting for results. He espoused a specific conspiracy theory on X on Thursday, saying three precincts in Albemarle County, Hanover County and Lynchburg were evacuated for 20 minutes because of fires.

“What is the probability?” he posted on X.”Does anyone recall even 1 fire at a precinct on election day?”

The answer, he added shortly after: “AI estimates the probability being 0.0000000318% chance.”

State election officials said there had been no fires, and that fire alarms that went off in three of the state’s 303 precincts were quickly resolved.

“In each case, local election officials handled the situation with care, ensuring that voting equipment was secured and that no voters were turned away,” said Andrea M. Gaines, a spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Elections.

Election skepticism has become common on the right in recent years, fueled by former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election being stolen. Good has also suggested President Joe Biden’s win was illegitimate, and he voted against certifying the results on Jan. 6, 2021, saying he was concerned about “the unprecedented volume of mail-in voting.”

During an appearance on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast Thursday, Good said he would request a recount of the results of his primary, which is allowed under state law in close elections.

“We’re going to have a full recount. We’re going to have a full investigation,” Good said in the interview. “It’s going to stretch out for a couple of weeks. We’ve got lawyers at the ready.”

He said his team was “trying to identify errors, mistakes” and looking for “easy discrepancies” where “clear mistakes have been made.” Good did not provide any evidence of such errors, and audits of elections across the country have not found the kind of significant fraud that has become the subject of conspiracy theories on the right.

A representative for Good’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on his rhetoric or his promise to call for a recount. McGuire’s campaign criticized Good’s comments for damaging public trust in the electoral system. (McGuire, a fervent Trump supporter, attended the “Stop the Steal” rally in D.C. on Jan. 6 but says he did not enter the Capitol.)

“Rather than accept his fate and the will of the people, Bob Good has chosen to undermine the integrity of Virginia voters,” said Sean Brown, a consultant for McGuire’s campaign. “His antics now are beneath the dignity of a soon to be former elected official.”

Good should “let this process play out,” Brown added, before what he expected to be “a free and fair election victory” for McGuire. (McGuire himself had prematurely declared victory Tuesday, before there was a clear winner and before the Associated Press and others had called the race.)

Under Virginia law, the losing candidate can request a recount if the margin of victory is less than 1 percent. And if the margin is less than 0.5 percent, then the state will pay for the costs.

It’s unclear whether Good would pay for a recount if the price tag falls on his campaign. On the podcast, he urged people to donate to fund his recount costs.

Bannon also egged on Good’s claims of possible fraud and framed the recount battle as a dry run for November. He repeated Trump’s false claims of election fraud in the 2020 election.

“It’s the swamp versus the Freedom Caucus. Are we going to allow the seat to be bought by the McCarthy revenge tour?” Good said on the podcast, referring to the multimillion-dollar effort by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his allies to oust Good and other Republicans who voted to depose him last fall.

At the close of Good’s segment, Bannon reminded listeners that the more they “tie down” McCarthy in Virginia’s 5th District, the less time he will have to go after Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), two other members who joined Good in dethroning McCarthy from the speakership last year.

“You back down for these McCarthy guys, they’re going to eat you alive,” Bannon warned.