McGuire, Witt face off Virginia’s 5th District

McGuire earned the Republican nomination in June after defeating Rep. Bob Good in a contentious primary.

With the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, McGuire narrowly defeated Good by 370 votes, or 50.3% to 49.7%. A recount paid for by Good confirmed McGuire’s victory.

Good, the former leader of the House Freedom Caucus, has not publicly said whether he is supporting McGuire in the race, while some of his supporters have vowed to write in his name instead of the nominee.

McGuire said in an interview Tuesday: “I don’t think much of (Good’s write-in campaign) at all. I’m on the ground out here (hearing) hardly nothing on it. If you’re a Republican, you’re either on the Republican team or you’re not. We’ve got a country to save.”

The 5th District extends from western Hanover, Louisa, Goochland and Powhatan counties in the Richmond suburbs, west to Albemarle County and south to Pittsylvania, Halifax and Mecklenburg counties on the state line.

The 5th District has not elected a Democrat to Congress since 2008, when Tom Perriello edged Rep. Virgil Goode, R-5th, by 727 votes.

A former Navy SEAL, McGuire was first elected to Virginia’s House of Delegates in 2017. After serving three terms in the House, he ran for the state Senate in 2023 after redistricting created an open district in his area.

A few days after running unopposed and being elected to the state Senate in November, he announced that he would run a primary campaign against Good.

He faced backlash for the decision to seek another office so quickly. The Goochland County Republican Committee sent McGuire a “no confidence resolution” in November, saying the electorate in his Senate district had been “misled and betrayed” and that it is “apparent that his intentions were primarily self-serving rather than driven by genuine desire for public service.”

McGuire spent his early childhood years in the foster care system, attending nine different elementary schools, according to his campaign website.

After graduating from high school, he joined the Navy and spent 10 years as a Navy SEAL.

When he returned to Virginia in 1998, he founded Seal Team PT, which he describes as a “fitness organization dedicated to helping teams and individuals become stronger, healthier, and more confident.”

Witt earned the Democratic nomination with 57% of the vote by defeating two other candidates in June.

Witt describes herself as a “country girl” who was raised on a small farm in Amherst County, where her family grew their own food and had no running water. Witt got her first job working in the tobacco fields when she was 14 years old, the same year her father taught her to drive a tractor. She worked for 32 years at Framatome, a nuclear steam supply systems manufacturer.

After she retired in 2013, Witt became founder and CEO of Define Success Coaching, a company that aims to help develop the next generation of executives and leaders. She has served as president of the NAACP Amherst Branch and the Central Virginia Academy for Nonprofit Excellence.

She said in an interview that the choice between herself and McGuire is clear.

“Do we want a future for our children and our grandchildren where we are protecting democracy, advancing justice and restoring hope through educational opportunities and rights and freedoms, and not rolling back what has already been established?” Witt said in an interview. “Extremism will get us nothing but just chaos, and that’s exactly what is playing out.”

McGuire said he doesn’t think humans have “that much impact on what’s going on in the climate.” 

He also said he has never seen proof that climate change is increasing the intensity and severity of hurricanes. 

Hurricane Helene ravaged the Southeast U.S. last week and over the weekend. Officials have reported at least 191 deaths across six states as a result of the storm and said the death toll is expected to rise as many people remain missing, according to the Associated Press. An initial report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimates that climate change contributed to a 50% increase in rainfall in parts of Georgia and the Carolinas, making those heavy rainfall events up to 20 times more likely. 

“I don’t really fall for a lot of political discourse on (climate change),” McGuire said. “Climate does change, but the way they politicize it, the Democrat Party, is just crazy.”

Witt’s platform includes carbon-free energy solutions and aid for farmer sustainability.

“I would love to be in the room to advocate for and to ensure that we have legislation to cover climate change,” Witt said. “So much is at risk.”

Witt said if she is elected, her top legislative priorities will be working to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would strengthen legal protections against discriminatory voting policies and practices, and codifying Roe V. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

“My granddaughters will no longer have the same rights that I’ve enjoyed, and my daughters no longer have those rights. It’s unconscionable,” she said. “We have women bleeding out in their bathrooms, miscarrying in the toilet, sitting in cars waiting to get sicker. That doesn’t sound like America.”

McGuire defends anti-abortion policies and says that life begins at conception. He introduced a bill in the state Senate last year that would have prohibited the state from giving any public funds to entities that provide abortion services. During his time in the state legislature, McGuire carried around a backpack with a baby sock pinned on it to remind people of “the most vulnerable,” he said, meaning unborn babies.

McGuire made immigration a top issue in his primary campaign against Good. 

“I think the whole country is OK with legal immigration, but if you start your time in America by breaking the law, you’re a criminal,” McGuire said. “They’re just coming across (the border) every which way they can. We don’t know who these folks are.”

Witt said the U.S. has an immigration problem that is undeniable but also fixable. She said there’s a need for faster turnaround on work permits and timelines for people who don’t qualify to be in the U.S. to leave.

“If we think deporting 11 million people out of America is going to do something good for us, play that out in your head – what will happen to our ability to produce the goods and the products and the services that we’re producing right now? It will break America,” Witt said.

Witt raised about $58,500 as of the June 30 filing deadline and McGuire raised about $1.4 million. Witt had $36,262 cash on hand as of June 30 and McGuire had $115,823, according to the Federal Elections Commission. 

Good won the district with 58% of the vote in 2022.

Early voting began Sept. 20 and election day is Nov. 5.