Perriello declares victory in 5th District race

By Ray Reed

Published: November 7, 2008

Democrat Tom Perriello declared victory Friday in the 5th Congressional District race against Rep. Virgil Goode, sitting on a 745-vote lead after three up-and-down days of canvassing the returns from Tuesday’s election.

“I am proud and humbled to be elected as the next congressman from the fifth district of Virginia,” Perriello said.

“The outcome is now certain: We have won the race and will be going to Washington to represent this amazing district,” Perriello said.

Goode said the announcement was premature. He also said he was hoping for a miracle.

“We won’t have certified results until Nov. 24,” Goode said, and a 745-vote margin is well within the roughly 1,500-vote margin that would allow Goode to request a recount.

Goode wasn’t saying Friday whether he would ask for a recount if the final margin leaves him short of victory.

“I want to talk with persons who are going to look at tally sheets and see how many voted, and see if we could have a Charlottesville miracle for Southside Virginia,” Goode said.

Goode was referring to the results of Charlottesville’s canvass on Thursday. In a city that gave Perriello 80 percent of its votes, the electoral board found 819 more for Perriello during its canvass on Thursday. It also found 141 more for Goode.

Perriello’s net gain of 678 votes in Charlottesville was enough to catapult him into the lead at the end of the day.

That lead stood up on Friday as the results of other localities’ canvasses were posted on the State Board of Elections Web site.

Instead of turning up a miracle for Goode, Friday’s postings showed that small errors found in Tuesday night’s reported returns mostly favored Perriello.

Perriello gained 100 votes in Albemarle County on Friday and another 100 in Nelson County, both attributed to “data entry errors” in the registrars’ offices on Tuesday night. After adjustments for other small changes, Perriello’s lead expanded by roughly 100 votes for the third day in a row.

Richard Cranwell, state chairman of the Democratic Party, said he called Perriello and said, “I want to be the first to congratulate you.”

“We looked at it pretty close, and I just don’t see how he makes it up,” Cranwell said, referring to Goode’s chances of closing the gap as the results of canvasses trickled in.

Perriello named L.F. Payne as head of his transition team.

Payne represented the 5th District in Congress for about nine years before retiring in 1997. Goode won the seat that same year.

Recounts can take a month, if Virginia history is an indication.

The last time Virginia had a recount in a major election, in the attorney general race in 2005 between Democrat Creigh Deeds and Bob McDonnell, the outcome wasn’t decided until Dec. 20.

That decision was reached six weeks after the election. McDonnell was declared the winner by 360 votes, after the recount added about 40 votes to his total.

If the current results stand, Charlottesville’s late discovery of the votes that put Perriello over the top carry some irony.

For the 12 years since Goode succeeded Payne, the heavily Democratic Charlottesville area has produced candidates who ran without success against Goode.

The Rocky Mount native enjoyed enough support from the rest of the district, until this year, to win handily.

Republican-leaning voters often gave Goode 60 to 70 percent of their votes in the majority of the district, which includes the area from Amherst County south to Martinsville, Danville and Halifax.