GOP congressman who officiated gay wedding loses primary

LYNCHBURG, Va. (AP) — A freshman Virginia GOP congressman who angered social conservatives in his district when he officiated a gay wedding lost his party’s nomination.

U.S. Rep. Denver Riggleman lost a GOP convention Saturday that was done via drive-thru because of the coronavirus pandemic. He was defeated by Bob Good, a former official in the athletics department at Liberty University.

While the convention ended at 7 p.m., the vote tally was not announced until after 1 a.m. Sunday. Good won 58% of the vote, campaign manager Nancy Smith told The Associated Press. 5th District Republican Committee Chair Melvin Adams said 2,537 of the more than 3,500 registered delegates voted, news outlets reported.

“Resounding win!” Smith wrote in an email.

Riggleman, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, upset many Republicans in his district last summer when he officiated the wedding of two male campaign aides.

The convention was held at a Lynchburg-area church near Good’s home and was the only place delegates could cast a ballot in a district that stretches from northern Virginia to the North Carolina border.

Riggleman has said a small coterie of Republican insiders were trying to rig the contest against him forcing the nomination process to be decided with a convention instead of a primary. Conventions favor more conservative candidates and have been used for years by Virginia Republicans to block moderate Republicans from winning office.

“Voting irregularities and ballot stuffing has been reported in multiple counties in the #VA05. Voter fraud has been a hallmark of this nomination process and I will not stand for it,” Riggleman tweeted a little over an hour before results were announced. “@VA_GOP needs to reevaluate their priorities. We are evaluating all our options at this time.”

President Donald Trump endorsed Riggleman, as did Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr.

Good is now the Republican nominee for Virginia’s 5th Congressional District. Four Democrats are vying to challenge him in the fall, with the winner picked later this summer.

“That’s what losers say,” Good told reporters, commenting on Riggleman’s allegations of irregularities.

Good has pledged to restore “Judeo-Christian” values to Congress. He’s also a hardliner on immigration and wants English to be the official language of the U.S. His victory could make national Democrats and outside groups more likely to spend money in the district, which easily went for Trump in 2016.