Incumbent members of Congress usually have a fundraising advantage over challengers. But one candidate is flipping the script.
Former Congressman Tom Perriello is hoping to return to the House, and he has $1.5 million cash on hand. Compare that to incumbent Republican Congressman John McGuire, who has about half a million dollars cash on hand.
Alex Keena at Virginia Commonwealth University says Perriello has more than twice as much campaign cash partially because of what happened during the failed redistricting effort.
"For a few months it looked like Perriello was going to be running in a district that would have been a lot more favorable to him, and he raised a lot of money at that point," Keena says. "But even still, that's pretty impressive in this particular district, which has swung towards the Republicans by a pretty comfortable margin over the last several years."
Cayce Myers at Virginia Tech says he'll be watching the Political Action Committees.
"PAC support is going to be a direct reflection of how competitive they see this race as," Myers says. "And so, this has been a race that is viewed as more safe than others within the national kind of calculation on midterms. And so, if the race and the polls indicate that there is a Democratic insurgence here or a much more competitive race than would be expected, you may see an uptick in donations, you may see an uptick in support."
This district stretches from the Democratic stronghold of Charlottesville and Albemarle County into the heavily Republican southside. It's an R plus six district, according to the Cook Political Report, which means that Democrats would need a significant wave to flip this seat from red to blue.
