Days after losing the election, Fifth District Congressman Virgil Goode complained to NBC-29 that his opponent, Democratic challenger Tom Perriello, spent $3 million more than he did.
“We were considerably outspent,” he told the Charlottesville TV news station. “Lotta New York money* poured in here.”
The post-election financial disclosure reports filed yesterday with the Federal Election Commission tell a very different story: It was Goode who out spent Perriello by $250,000.
Combined, both campaigns spent $3.5 million on the race for the Fifth District congressional seat, with Perriello laying down $1.69 million and Goode burning through $1.81 million.
In the final push to the election and the weeks after f(rom October 16 through November 24), Goode spent $799,000. That’s more than double Perriello’s expenditures of $382,000.
Perriello has a 745-vote lead going into a recount, on which both campaigns will presumably spend money in order to get observers in place. The recount will take place on December 16 and 17.
* Check out C-VILLE’s feature story on campaign donations, which showed that Perriello’s real secret was tapping the wealth of Charlottesville and Albemarle.