VA-05: Perriello Launches to “Huge” Lead!

(From the diaries – promoted by James L.)

Important update: VA BOE repots a HUGE jump in Tom Perriello’s lead this afternoon from 30 votes to 834 votes. Goode has picked up a few votes here and there in Campbell and Pittsylvania County since, bringing Tom Perriello from +834 to his current total.

Race	Precincts In	Dem% – Rep%	Vote +-
VA-05	100%	Perriello 50.07% (158,523) – Goode 49.87% (157,894)	Perriello +629

I want to give yall a quick update on VA-05.

Firstly, get comfy.  We are winning this election, but I get the feeling this battle will take days, if not weeks to settle.

Secondly, progressives should be both eager and proud about working to win this race. Tom Perriello is a legitimate progressive phenomenon with a record of diplomatic work in conflict zones like Darfur and Afghanistan, and a natural ability to communicate to “real Virginians.” (not you commie types in NoVA!)

Perriello has made such an impression in VA-05 that he is now leading a 6-term Republican incumbent in an R+6 district by 30 votes with 100% reported.

Here’s whats happened in VA-05, and what we can expect in the coming days…

The battle for VA-05 (in yellow):

Winning the fifth district would turn a majority of Virginia’s Congressional seats blue.



Red=Republican, blue=Democratic, light blue=Dem pickup

Round 1: pre-Election Day

Barack Obama is a natural organizer, and that’s how he ran his campaign. Tom Perriello is the same way. Early on, the campaign invested in field operations, organizers, and GOTV apparatus. This was mostly in the southern, rural part of the district in places like Danville, Martinsville, and Bedford. Nobody had ever organized so heavily in southside. Tom saw that this would be necessary, and he set up an A+ field team and GOTV operation. State Senator and Gubernatorial Candidate Creigh Deeds said “I have never seen such local organization in my entire political life.”

Round 1, Tom.

Round 2 Goode Helps Us Close.

Tom’s momentum was helped in the last two weeks because of collosal screw-ups by Virgil Goode mis-using his office resources to promote a gay film. (Sultry full story here Goode was also running incredibly nasty attack ads distorting Tom’s skin color and making him look foreign, and calling Tom a “New York Lawer” (he never practiced law in New York.) Tom ran engaging positive ads like this one.

Election week polls showed the race to be within the margin of error.

Round 2, Tom.

Round 3 Election Day

Tom had a massive GOTV operation, as expected. Early in the night on Tuesday, MSNBC and other networks called the race for Goode. All of us knew that the networks were getting way ahead of themselves, and were under-estimating people’s support of Tom Perriello. Knowing what we did about the field operation, we called bullshit on the networks. Round 3, us.

Round 4: As the numbers came in

Later on in the evening, we saw Tom Perriello get closer and closer, the networks actually started “un-calling” the race for Goode. In fact, as the evening wore on, Perriello took a pretty substantial lead (well, at least compared to the 31-vote margin he currently holds). In fact, Tom Perriello actually had built up a lead of nearly 2,300 votes with 99.34% reporting. 305 of 307 precincts, and only about 800-1000 voters remained outstanding. Since, in the great state of Virginia, 800 voters can not cast 2300 votes, I called the race for Tom Perriello, drank a beer, a celebrated an un-imaginable upset in my Congressional race on a miraculous night that I will never forget as long as I live.

Round 4, youthful exuberance, O.R.E. (Obama Related Euphoria)

Round 5 Wednesday AM

Via a a commenter at CVille News, there was a huge shift towards Goode at 8AM due to VERIS machines in Danville City shifting 1,809 votes to Goode and subtracting 308 votes from Tom Perriello when they came back online at 8AM. I don’t expect foul play, as updated vote totals roughly mirror the 2004 results. But nevertheless, it was a shock to most of us who had gone to bed thinking Tom Perriello was the clear winner to wake up and see Virgil Goode ahead by several 100 votes. Richmond Times-Dispatch has more on the VERIS machine switch.

Round 5, Virgil and the bad guys.

Round 6 Wednesday day

What had looked like a certain win for Tom now looked like a near certain loss. However, all day yesterday Tom benefited from incoming results of district wide canvassing, and correction of human error, and his position continued to improve all day. He eventually took a small lead (initially he led by just 6 votes), and then his lead climbed to a staggering 31 votes, where it remains. Although we can expect that number to change with additional results coming in today.

How did the candidates spend their Wednesday?

Tom spent the day crossing the district to thank his volunteers and celebrate how far they had come together.

Virgil Goode holed up in his office in Rocky Mount with lawyers to figure out how to block the counting of provisional ballots.

Round 6, exasperation

Round 7 Upcoming days: The war over provisional ballots

The County will likely finish its canvass this week and we will have a rough count of where we stand without the provisional ballots. The state has until November 2th

This is where the story gets troubling:

Tom Perriello believes that we need to count ALL votes, including the provisional ballots. If that is done, he is confident that he will be elected.  

Virgil Goode on the other hand is challenging all provisional ballots, and his supporters are even saying “think like a bad guy.”

At around 1:45pm today, outside a conference room at the Albemarle County Office Extension on Fifth Street, a group of about five people strategized while the Albemarle County Registrar’s Office was on lunch break. Among them were Rachel Schoenewald, wife of the County GOP Chair Christian Schoenewald, and Clara Belle Wheeler. The group discussed how best to challenge provisional ballots that were cast by people on election day but who had received absentee ballots.

“Think like a bad guy,” said one woman. The phrase “integrity of the process” was batted around as a way of discussing the objection.

Round 8 The recount

Candidates in Virginia can request a recount if there is a difference of less than 1% (or, as an astute RK commenter points out, about 3,147 votes in this election.) We can be relatively certain that this will be the case.

A recount cannot be asked for until after the BOE certifies the election, which will occur Nov. 24. The request then needs to be filed within 10 days, or by Dec. 4.

Tom Perriello has said that he wants to ensure that we have a full “first count” before we have a recount. All signs are that Virgil Goode is lawyering up and ready to call for a recount as well.

Yesterday the Perriello campaign put out this statement:

“We are clearly seeing a very close election with vote totals from different counties changing rapidly, and Tom Perriello remains confident that when everyone’s vote is counted he will win this election and move ahead with his agenda for economic revival in the fifth district. Right now, our focus is on making sure every single vote is counted and every single voice is heard. The results need to be certified and there are provisional ballots that need to be considered. We are confident that people in the fifth district want change and that we are going to be successful in this election in the end.”

Tom Perriello has inspired people in the fifth district of Virginia like no other candidate ever has. His resume as a negotiator in conflict zones like Darfur and Afghanistan, his affable personality, his A+ staff, and his tireless campaigning have him neck-and-neck for the seat of deplorable xenophobe Virgil Goode. Goode is most notorious for his indecipherable rant against Muslims and immigration when Keith Ellison was elected in 2006, and under his watch this district has lost 1000s of jobs.

Tom gives me hope for my section of “real” Virginia, for the state of Virginia, and for my country. His service to those less fortunate has been the calling of his life, and he will make an incredible citizen-legislator.

We are winning! Spread the word.

And lets turn Virginia’s biggest district blue!