Associated Press

Tom Perriello (third from right), who leads the Fifth Congressional District vote count that will be certified Monday, spent a few days of orientation in Washington with newly elected House members.

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• Photo galleries, video, searchable municipality- and precinct-level results, Election Day analysis and an interactive map of Virginia's voting trends since 1980

Previous coverage

• Close race in 5th draws spotlight
• Perriello declares victory
• Perriello broadens lead over Goode in 5th House District vote tally
• Goode, Perriello still in tight race

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• Goode, Perriello await returns

When he burst on the political scene about 15 months ago, Tom Perriello appeared to be the same run-to-lose candidate whom Rep. Virgil Goode easily dispatched before.

Perriello, a 33-year-old security advisor with an Ivy League education, had no real retail political experience and was virtually unknown in the larger portion of Goode's 5th Congressional District. And Perriello hailed from the Charlottesville area, considered the most liberal bastion of the largely conservative and rural district. He seemed to be the perfect fit for Goode to successfully portray as a "New York lawyer" -- one of the predominant themes Goode pushed during the campaign.

But as the state board of elections meets Monday to certify the Nov. 4 election results, Perriello is poised to pull off an upset of the most unexpected kind, even in a landslide year for Democrats. Going into Monday's certification, Perriello holds a 745-vote lead over Goode, R-Rocky Mount. Goode has said he will wait until the votes are certified to decide if he'll request a recount.

Not even the most Democratic-leaning pundits believed Perriello was actually going to win the race going into Election Day. So how did a political unknown, in his first attempt at running for public office, knock off a career legislator -- long respected in his own home district for helping local Ruritan Clubs to firehouses -- who had handily beaten every challenger during his 35-year political career?

At first glance, it is obvious that Perriello got significant coattail benefit from president-elect Barack Obama as well as United States senator-elect Mark Warner.

Perriello's wins mirrored Obama's in many localities in the 5th District, including the cities of Danville and Martinsville, and Nelson and Brunswick counties. He also won Fluvanna County, which Obama did not.

In localities where Goode got the majority vote, Perriello was able to cut into Goode's margins from previous elections -- and those margins mirrored the presidential election.

Compared with the 2006 election against Democrat Al Weed, Goode got 7 percent fewer votes in Campbell and Pittsylvania counties, and 13 percent fewer in Henry County, long one of Goode's strongest bases of support.

Even in Goode's lifelong home of Franklin County, he received 62 percent of votes this year, compared with 70 percent in 2006.

Turnout was a key, too. Like the rest of the country, voter turnout was up dramatically in the 5th District this year -- up 45 percent from 2006 and 17 percent from the 2004 presidential election. Interestingly, Goode's margins of victory over Weed in 2006 and 2004 were about the same as the turnout increase this year.

Weed got no more than 40 percent of the vote either time.

But Weed's challenge of Goode during the past two elections, combined with an increased interest in politics and "the feeling in the 5th District that things got so bad," also gave Perriello a boost, said Rachael Klarman, a Perriello campaign organizer who also worked for Weed.

To Weed, a Nelson County farmer, having someone challenge Goode each year -- and timing -- were everything.

"Over time, people ran against him and were able to find more weaknesses," Weed said. "Looks like Tommy came along at the right time."

"Perriello ran a solid campaign, but that was on top of a base built up by Democrats over the last five election cycles," said Waldo Jaquith, a political blogger and member of the Albemarle County Democratic Committee.

A perfect storm

The coattail effect aside, this year's campaign was arguably the bumpiest Goode has ever experienced.

Goode has been criticized by pundits and other politicians on a national level over the past few years for his hard-line anti-immigration stances -- a situation highlighted by his 2006 political brush-up with U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn. Ellison, a Muslim, decided to take his congressional oath using a Quran. Goode wrote at the time that more Muslims will be elected if the country doesn't adopt anti-immigration stances -- a position he carried into this year's campaign.

It also didn't help that Goode was running as a Republican -- the party of the unpopular president -- this year at a time when the United States is dealing with an economic downturn, the likes of which it hasn't seen since the Great Depression.

Then, Perriello piled more on.

Perriello went after Goode over his decision to attend a fundraiser for him sponsored by a lobbying firm on Sept. 11.

Next, Perriello shoved a 2006 issue back on the table -- the controversy over Goode taking illegal contributions from the scandal-plagued MZM company officials about the same time he was working to secure $3.6 million for the company to locate a military intelligence center in Martinsville.

And, in a perfect ending to the race for Perriello, allegations arose late in the campaign that Goode -- a staunch opponent of gay rights -- had lent support to "Eden's Curve," an erotic film depicting homosexual relationships that was shot in Danville. Goode said he had never heard of the movie and pledged to get to the bottom of the matter.

Linwood Duncan, Goode's press secretary based in Danville, had a bit role in the film. Soon after the issue broke publicly, Duncan resigned, citing health reasons.

"Voters keep a running tally, and they get to a tipping point," said Ed Hally, a political science professor at Ferrum College.

The Perriello campaign took advantage of all the political artillery at its disposal, using it as examples of possible corruption and favoritism of special interest groups on Goode's part, observers said, and that gave voters a reason to vote out the incumbent -- always the key for a challenger.

"There are races in which a challenger can win, but this is one where the incumbent had to lose," Jaquith said. "House seats are famously friendly to incumbents. This 'Eden's Curve' business was trouble for him [Goode]. Perriello would have lost with a healthy 48 percent of the vote if it weren't for the 'Eden's Curve' controversy."

Strategy paid dividends

The Perriello campaign often took the offensive, stating the candidate's position on issues while pointing out what it considered Goode's shortcomings.

It was Perriello's strategy of positive campaigning that separated him from previous Goode challengers, Hally said

"Goode didn't run a bad campaign, but Perriello ran a great campaign," he said.

Voters seemed to respond well to Perriello's positive and "clever" campaign ads, compared with the negative ads from the incumbent, especially the television commercial in which Perriello's image was altered to make him appear shadowy and somewhat sinister, Hally said.

And when the campaign is dissected later, one factor that shows just how formidable Perriello was from the beginning is his fundraising abilities. The final money totals won't be available for several weeks, but going into the election, Perriello had actually raised more money and spent more than Goode, although the incumbent still had more cash on hand.

It now seems that Perriello, who has aided in strategic political and wartime situations in Liberia and Afghanistan, knew well what he was doing all along.

And now, as the certification awaits, he's not sitting still.

"We don't have any time to waste," he said this week. "We're focused on moving forward. Focused on committees and staff and opening district offices."

Perriello was in Washington last week, attending orientation for newly elected members of Congress.

"It was exciting," he said. "A lot of new members came in with a strong message of wanting accountability, no bailouts. You can really feel the bipartisan spirit of the new class."