CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Republican incumbent Rep. John McGuire declared victory in a tight race in Virginia’s 5th District, but his Democratic challenger, Tom Perriello, said there are still votes to count.

“Despite $4.5 million of BS put on TV about me, by the grace of God, we won,” McGuire told a crowd of supporters at First Free Coffee Bar in Albemarle County on Tuesday at about 11:30 p.m. “If you voted for me, I love you. If you didn’t vote for me, I love you. I will now work to earn your trust.”

But Perriello, speaking to a standing-room only crowd at Kardinal Hall in Charlottesville, took to the podium at 11:12 p.m. and told his supporters, “Welcome to overtime.”

“We are confident that when all the votes are counted, we will win this district,” Perriello told the crowd.

According to the Virginia Department of Elections website, McGuire led by just under 9,000 votes, likely too big a number for any outstanding provisional ballots to erase. Still, as he left the watch party event shortly before midnight, Perriello told Cville Right Now he believed victory was still possible.

“We’ve just exceeded expectations everywhere,” Perriello said. “We have unprecedented votes in our rural communities. We’ve seen folks in every corner show up and vote in ways you’ve never seen in a midterm before. We’ve gotten so many independents and Republicans voting our way. And right now, if you look at the provisional ballots, and you look at the early vote totals, it should project that we pull this thing out. But we believe in counting every vote. So we’re going to see where it ends up. I think everyone will take a deep breath tonight and hopefully the trajectory will continue and we’ll see a big upset here in the 5th.”

Perriello is the last Democratic to represent the heavily gerrymandered 5th District, winning the seat in the 2008 election, but only holding it for one term. McGuire is finishing his first term and, if Tuesday night’s margin holds, will be one of only a few Republican candidates to buck a national trend that saw Democrats grab control of both the Senate and House of Representatives.

In an election that saw voters in traditional Republican strongholds including Texas, Kansas and South Carolina reject the policies of President Donald Trump, McGuire – a staunch Trump loyalist –

“MAGA is dead,” former Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman, who endorsed Perriello, told Cville Right Now. “It ended tonight.”

For his part, McGuire said he needed to assess Tuesday’s national results but said he has a proven track record of being able to work with Democrats.

“I think people are looking for the kind of common sense and focus on bringing down costs that we saw here in this race that defied all the odds to put us in a position to essentially be tied at this point,” Perriello said. “I think you saw that people don’t like the kind of corruption and chaos coming from Washington. They don’t like the costs that are out of control. And they don’t like Congressmen that are phoning it in, instead of those that are stepping up to defend people and defend coming sense.”

As expected, Perriello ran up big margins in Albemarle County and Charlottesville. He won the county by over 25,000 votes and by over 15,000 votes in the city. But those numbers were canceled out by far more conservative areas in other parts of the district.

State Del. Amy Laufer, who represents Albemarle, attended Tuesday night’s Perriello event.

“I think voters spoke loud and clear that the policies of the federal government aren’t helping them. In fact, they’re harming them,” Laufer said. “We see it as we go door knocking. Some people are wondering if they can buy gas or food. This is not sustainable. These policies are crushing people.”