CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – In 2019, Richard Fox ran to be the Republican Party’s nominee for the House of Delegates. Friday afternoon, Fox stood in a cow field on his Albemarle County farm and joined about a dozen others in urging fellow farmers in the 5th District to vote for Democrat Tom Perriello.

“For the conservative voters out there who are upset, give Tom a chance,” Fox told Cville Right Now after Friday’s campaign event. “Let’s hold him accountable. If he doesn’t follow through with these things in two years, we’ve got another election coming up. We can get a new representative. But going along with the status quo, it hasn’t gotten us anywhere. It’s only made things worse.”

As prognosticators project the 5th District race between Perriello and Republican incumbent John McGuire to be tightening, with some labeling it a toss-up, Perriello has pushed to make inroads with voters who don’t normally vote for Democrats. On Sept. 28, he appeared with a group of current and former Republicans, including former Rep. Denver Riggleman, to launch a “Republicans for Tom” initiative.

Friday, on Fox’s cattle farm, he kicked off “Farmers for Tom.”

“Farmers, like everyone else, love their families a lot more than they love their political affiliations,” Perriello said. “I think that’s why people are coming our way.”

Zach Morse, a Nelson County cattle farmer, spoke during the event, saying that federal policies supported by McGuire have driven up costs for farmers on everything from fuel to equipment.

“We’re all fed up,” Morse said. “We worked so hard to get where we are today and we’re just holding on. We’re fed up with the high diesel prices. I feel that small farmers have been left behind.”

Gail Hobbs-Page, who owns Caromont Farm in Esmont, said the trade war with Canada and Trump’s tariff policies have negatively affected area farms.

“What we’re approaching is a perfect storm of challenges,” Hobbs-Page said during her remarks.

McGuire’s support for Trump’s war in Iran and the impact it has had on fuel prices was a common concern of the farmers gathered Friday.

“What we’re seeing on a daily basis is a direct result of what happened at the end of February, that we were told was going to last four weeks, and here we are months later and we’re still in this conflict,” Fox told Cville Right Now afterward. “Our fuel’s up over 80%. Fertilizer’s considerably higher than it was last year and last year was higher than the years before. It just keeps going up. Tariffs have not helped. With equipment purchases and other things, tariffs have hurt farmers.”

Fox said that there are over 8,000 farming families in the 5th District working on farms that sit on nearly 1.8 million acres of farmland.

“Farmers in the 5th District need to stand up, start talking to other farmers and start getting some people together who traditionally wouldn’t vote for a Democrat,” Fox said. “These policies, they’re not Democrat. They’re not Republican. They’re what’s best for people, best for families in the 5th District.”

Fox said McGuire has not been an effective legislator for farming community issues.

“The thing that I really like about Tom, he’s at least put a policy out there,” he said. “We don’t get that from John McGuire. We don’t have him giving us something we can hold him accountable to. We have him saying he listens, that he’s taking it to Washington. But he hasn’t in the last two years. If he’s listened, how come things are only continuing to get worse? How come he continues to support policies that make things worse?”

Perriello said he’s gotten important feedback from the farmers he’s spent time with, all over the district, during this campaign.

“One thing I love about farmers is, they’re straight shooters,” Perriello said. “I’ve been in conversations with farmers and, whether they vote for me or not, I still want to understand what I can learn and how I can be the best advocate possible. I think what people have appreciated, it’s not showing up the first time. It’s when I show up the second time and clearly did my homework based on what they asked me. Over these last few months, I think you’ve seen the number of concerns for farmers just pile on top, and I think the lack of any serious response from John McGuire is something that farmers who work so hard just have a lot of trouble respecting.”