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CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Tom Perriello opened his campaign headquarters in Charlottesville on Saturday morning, but the path to reclaiming the 5th District’s Congressional seat for Democrats, the candidate said, could lie in places where the party doesn’t traditionally win.
The last Democrat to with the 5th, Perriello said victory in November will depend not just on running up big margins in strongholds like Charlottesville and Albemarle County, but outperforming expectations in the large, sprawling district’s more conservative areas.
Perriello said kitchen table issues including affordability, healthcare access and voting rights have made a wider coalition of voters receptive to his message, making that path more walkable.
“We’re ready to flip the 5th District,” Perriello told a crowd of about 75 supporters who gathered for Saturday morning’s event on Dale Ave. “It matters who holds power. It really does. … The stakes really are as high as they feel.”
Del. Katrina Callsen and Del. Amy Laufer were on hand to introduce the candidate to the crowd, which included City Councilor Lloyd Snook, Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Hingeley and former candidate Adele Stichel.
Perriello said Republican incumbent John McGuire’s votes in Congress have driven up costs for Virginians, and created a rural healthcare crisis. He contrasted that with his one term in Congress, from 2009-2011, when he said his record included bringing economic relief to the district, closing the funding gap for public schools and law enforcement in the district, and passing the Affordable Care Act.
“How’s John McGuire meeting this moment?” Perriello said to Cville Right Now. “John McGuire has met this moment by basically hiding from the voters, not listening and basically doing whatever the corporate lobbyists and the White House tell him to do. And that’s cowardice.”
Perriello highlighted those differences during an exclusive, 20-minute interview with Cville Right Now after Saturday’s event.
“When I was in office, we put money in everybody’s pocket with economic relief. John McGuire has literally taken money out of everybody’s pocket,” Perriello said. “I showed up, even meeting with tea parties and people that didn’t agree with me. John McGuire doesn’t even show up for the people who supposedly agree with him. What we’re finding is, people from the right, left and center want to fire McGuire. They understand that I delivered the results. What people want to see is lower costs. We made things more affordable. They want to see wages go up. I fought to increase wages all over this area. And they want to see some common sense restored.”
Having a presence and campaigning on those issues, Perriello believes, will help him outperform previous Democratic candidates in traditionally Republican areas of the 5th District.”
“I’ve been to [the] southside more times in the last week than McGuire’s been in the last year and a half,” Perriello said. “We’re showing up repeatedly. Folks around here know, from me doing the 100 hours of town hall meetings, that I want to listen to everybody, not just the people that agree with me. And I take seriously that the title I’m asking people to give me and hire me for is representative. And that means I have to represent. You cannot represent if you don’t even listen to people. And John McGuire doesn’t listen to people.”
Perriello said McGuire’s loyal support of President Trump will be an albatross during the campaign, as Trump’s economic policies – including the tariffs and the war in Iran – have driven up the cost of living.
Perriello said he supports “strategic tariffs” to protect American jobs. But he said that’s not how the current tariffs are being used.
“Trump is putting tariffs on everyone from the Middle East to Madagascar and he’s doing it to shake down these countries for hotel deals and crypto deals for his sons, period,” Perriello said.
Perriello said the Trump administration’s attack on voting rights in southern states could be a galvanizing issue for an even wider swath of voters come November. He hopes it has a similar impact to the boost Democrats received after Roe v. Wade was overturned, threatening access to abortion for American women.
That was a huge issue in Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s 15-point win last November.
Voters in Virginia then narrowly backed a redistricting initiative that would have helped Democrats secure more favorable voting maps for the upcoming midterms, but that result was invalidated by a Supreme Court of Virginia ruling that found the General Assembly didn’t follow proper procedure in adding the measure to the April ballot.
Now, for the third time in a year, Democrats are asking voters to side with them at the ballot.
Saturday, Perriello told his supporters he needed a “Presidential level turnout” to win and “not let the U.S. Constitution die on our watch.”