Virginia Republican who officiated gay wedding loses nomination for Congress

A Virginia Republican congressman who angered social conservatives in his district when he officiated a gay wedding has lost his party’s nomination.

Representative Denver Riggleman lost on Saturday in a party convention which was carried out as a drive-thru because of the coronavirus pandemic. He was defeated by Bob Good, a former official in the athletics department at the evangelical Liberty University.

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.

Donald Trump endorsed him, as did Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. But Good is now the Republican nominee for Virginia’s fifth district. Four Democrats are vying to challenge him in the fall, with the winner picked later this summer.

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

Riggleman has said a small coterie of party insiders were trying to rig the contest against him, forcing the nomination 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.

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.

While the convention ended at 7pm the vote tally was not announced until after 1am on Sunday. Good said he won 58% of the vote, news outlets reported, and district Republican chair Melvin Adams said 2,537 of more than 3,500 registered delegates voted.

“Voting irregularities and ballot stuffing has been reported in multiple counties in the #VA05,” Riggleman tweeted a little over an hour before results were announced.

“Voter fraud has been a hallmark of this nomination process and I will not stand for it. The Virginia Republican party needs to re-evaluate their priorities. We are evaluating all our options at this time.”

“That’s what losers say,“ Good told reporters.