As the Congressional races continue to push forward to next month's election there has been a massive shift to digital spending given the COVID-19 impacts on retail campaigning throughout the districts. This is particularly true in the Virginia 5th where the incumbent Rep. Denver Riggleman (R) was forced out of his seat through rather corrupt practices from within his own local GOP committee during what has been characterized as a "circus" resulting in the nomination of Bob Good (R) formerly of Liberty University.
Recently, the Good campaign appears to be scrambling over disclosures that resulted in the campaigns filings that may have not revealed certain assets owned by Good. It happens that the Good campaign appears to have failed to disclose about 250,000 in assets on state filings that appeared recently on federal paperwork filed as an amended financial disclosure form. The filing can be found here:
https://disclosures-clerk.house.gov/public_disc/financial-pdfs/2019/10039161.pdf
This issue comes after recent attacks launched by the Bob Good campaign against the Democratic candidate Dr. Cameron Webb (D) that claim that Webb supports defunding police and has asserted that Webb is in effect "anti-police". Immediately following the attack, Bob Good's own record with regard to local policing came under scrutiny that demonstrated that Good while an official with Campbell County supported decreasing funding for local sheriff office on two separate instances which has been claimed to limit the effectiveness of attracting deputies to Campbell County as the pay scale is not commensurate to other Virginia localities. The Webb campaign fired back very aggressively on social media to dismiss the claims coming from the Good campaign regarding defunding.
Dr. Cameron Webb has never released any public statement regarding support of defunding police. This issue has been made a hot button issue in many Congressional races however there is some question in reality just how much impact any Congressman would have on local law enforcement funding in truth. Local law enforcement typically comes within the parameters of local government funding and allocation of funds for the either sheriff or police departments. Webb denied the claims in terms of defunding police and charged the Good campaign with yet another misleading attack on his candidacy.
Webb is the son of a former federal law enforcement officer and a large part of the Webb campaign has been criminal justice reform. Such campaigning has generated some traction in the greater Charlottesville region of the district. Webb has campaigned effectively in some conservative areas of the district through his effective connection skills with voters of both parties. Webb has given some credit to President Trump in areas like criminal justice reform but has stated that he hopes to expand on the First Step Act signed by President Trump.
Webb has hardly thus far run a negative campaign directed at is opponent. The Good campaign however has gone negative in wake of recent polling for President Trump that can certainly impact down ballot races in Virginia. Good has to be very careful with this strategy as he is also having to deal with the fact he must heal the rift between him and Riggleman supporters. Many of Riggleman's supports are independents and Libertarian Republicans who do not subscribe to the "red biblical conservative" label that has come to be the prime attribution to Bob Good.
These voters are very much up for grabs in the VA5 as a direct result of the VA5 GOP District Committee.
The race as it stands in early October is a "toss up". That in itself is a huge positive for Virginia Democrats given the nomination of Denver Riggleman would have certainly created a much tougher road for winning the district. Much will depend on the turnout in the Charlottesville region which is typically a pro-Democratic area. The impact of Covid-19 and the unknown campus turnout this cycle as a result at University of Virginia is a critical contributing factor in this race this cycle.
The claim regarding defunding police has been rebuked rather effectively by the Cameron Webb campaign and Webb very effectively turned the issue back on Bob Good's own record in Campbell County that otherwise many voters may never have known.
The VA5 should be lean Republican but Cameron Webb is making in roads in areas within the district which is one of the most diverse in terms of geography and one of biggest districts in the Commonwealth. It can take some five hours to travel from one end of the district to the other north to south. It is comprised of rural, small town and mid size towns as well as small cities. Many are college towns with younger voter classes.
Th wildcard in this race is Denver Riggleman. Thus far there has been no real endorsement of Good from the Riggleman camp and many believe that Riggleman plans to run for Governor of Virginia in 2021 as an "independent" given the bad blood that the corruption in the VA5 nominating process highlighted earlier this year.
The Republican Party of Virginia has since voted in support of preventing such corruption from happening again stemming from VA5 District Committee members accepting payments from the Good campaign during the nominating process and than casting votes regarding the process in which the nomination would occur. Many claim that this corruption was born out contempt for Riggleman by some committee members for marrying a gay couple in 2019. It has been claimed that Melvin Adams and Chris Shores associated with the Virginia 5th Congressional Committee went about locating a candidate to challenge Riggleman over the issue. Adams has been reported to have made extreme homophobic comments and anti LGBTQ comments that Cameron Webb's campaign has used effectively in portraying Good as having the same core religious beliefs that are not aligned with majority of the district.
Thus far Dr. Cameron Webb has raised 1.3 million according to the Virginia Public Access Project whereas Bob Good has raised just 262,031 as of June 30, 2020. The next campaign donations numbers should be releasing very soon.
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