The votes are counted ... What next?

The Charlottesville area’s tea party has a message for Republican congressman-elect Robert Hurt: We’ll be watching.

“He ran on a platform that was basically in tune with our core principles,” said Jefferson Area Tea Party Chairwoman Carole Thorpe. “It’ll be interesting to see if he keeps his campaign promises.”

Hurt, a state senator from Chatham, unseated one-term incumbent Democrat Tom Perriello of Ivy in Tuesday’s election with 50.75 percent of the vote as part of a Republican wave that swept Democrats out of office across the nation.

The local tea party on Wednesday issued a statement that congratulates Hurt on his victory and says tea partiers “look forward to him championing the conservative principles and policies he espoused during his campaign.”

“Among these,” it said, “are his pledges to co-sponsor or vote for legislation that will balance the budget, prevent tax increases, fight against earmarks, audit the Federal Reserve, de-fund ObamaCare and extra-Constitutional agencies, and support the 10th Amendment.”

The “extra-Constitutional agencies,” Thorpe said, include the federal departments of Energy and Education, both of which she believes perform functions better left to the states.

“So long as [Hurt] keeps his promises, upholds the Constitution and represents the majority will of his constituents, the JATP can be an active and effective ally,” the tea party said. “But just as with congressman Perriello before him, we will watch his actions closely and hold him accountable if he should fail in his duty. We will remain a vigilant watchdog of whomever serves as our congressman, regardless of party affiliation.”

Perriello was one of three Democratic congressmen from Virginia who were defeated Tuesday. Also unseated were Rick Boucher, a Democrat from Abingdon who has served in the House since 1983, and Glenn Nye, a freshman Democrat from Norfolk. U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Fairfax, appeared to be hanging onto a lead in a race likely headed toward a recount.

Isaac Wood, a House race analyst with the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said Perriello’s defeat essentially came down to the 5th District’s conservative leanings, the economy and the pendulum swing against Democrats and President Barack Obama.

“Tom Perriello ran a strong race, but was not able to overcome the conservative nature of the district and the year,” Wood said. “Obama’s visit [to Charlottesville last week] may have hurt and it may have helped, but it was secondary to the economic issues and anti-Democratic sentiment that made up the minds of most voters. Now Robert Hurt is in a much stronger position than Perriello ever was, as redistricting in March will likely only increase the Republican nature of this already conservative district.”

Jeff Clark, a conservative independent candidate and tea party member from Danville, failed to make much of an impact on the race between Hurt and Perriello. Clark ultimately took fewer than 5,000 votes of nearly 235,000 votes cast.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out direct mail pieces in the campaign’s final days that portrayed Clark as the race’s true conservative in a thinly veiled attempt to siphon votes from Hurt. The effort, it seems, failed to be particularly persuasive.

Hurt won in 14 of the district’s 22 localities, which stretch from the Charlottesville region down to the Southside communities of Danville and Martinsville. He received 8,674 more votes than Perriello, according to unofficial returns.

In the 5th District, only one locality, Fluvanna County, flipped its support from Perriello, having backed the Democrat two years earlier.

In the Charlottesville region, Perriello carried Charlottesville and the counties of Albemarle, Buckingham and Nelson. Hurt, meanwhile, won in Fluvanna and Greene counties.

More than half the district’s registered voters turned out, marking the highest level of voter participation out of all of Virginia’s 11 congressional elections on Tuesday.