What's next for Perriello?

Having lost his bid for a second term Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Ivy, is not ruling out running for office again but has not yet decided what’s next.

“I know it’ll be service. It could be nonprofit. It could be public. Who knows?” Perriello said Thursday morning. “It’s going to take me a while to figure all that out.”

When asked if he would consider running for Congress again or for some other office, Perriello punted.

“I haven’t ruled out anything but right now the focus is on seeing this thing through. I’ve got two more months to serve [in Congress]. Right now the priority is to help Sen. [Robert] Hurt get off the strongest start possible.”

Perriello, who was elected to Congress in 2008 by the slimmest margin of any congressional race in the country that year, said he is reluctant to predict his future, as his past service has always taken unpredictable turns.

“One of the things that I’ve always really tried hard to do in life is to figure out what I’m called to do right now and not chart out some strategy to something else. And it’s ended me up in very different places,” Perriello said. “Sometimes it lands me in Darfur, sometimes it lands me in Congress. So where it lands me next is a mystery.”

Perriello lost his re-election bid to Hurt, a Republican state senator from Chatham who ran on a promise to cut federal spending, reduce taxes and ease regulation of business. Hurt defeated Perriello with a margin of 8,660 votes out of 234,989 cast.

Despite his loss Tuesday, Perriello’s campaign on Thursday pointed to the fact that the freshman Democrat exceeded expectations and won more than 110,000 votes in a GOP-leaning district while swimming against a strong anti-Democrat tide.

The race drew the highest voter turnout in Virginia, with 55.3 percent of the district’s voters casting a ballot.

Perriello’s strong showing on Tuesday is feeding speculation about his political future.

Former GOP congressman Tom Davis of Fairfax County told the Washington Post that Perriello is “still very viable.”

“The sky's the limit for him,” Davis said. “He’s universally respected. If he wants to stay in politics, he’s the kind of person you want in politics. He’s principled. He’s earnest. He’s polite. He’s all of those things. He can come up to Fairfax, and he’ll probably win forever.”

Perriello won “everyone’s begrudging admiration,” Davis said, because he ran a hard-fought campaign that did not avoid talking about his record voting in favor of health-care reform and other Democratic-backed initiatives.

Perriello toured the 5th District — which includes much of the Charlottesville region and stretches to Southside — on Thursday, thanking his volunteers at campaign offices in Charlottesville, Martinsville, Bedford, Danville and Farmville.

At his campaign office off the Downtown Mall, Perriello told his volunteers that the actions they supported have made lives better.

“Thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything ya’ll did. It’s just been an inspiration. I walk away from this experience inspired,” Perriello told them. “I’ve talked to some of my colleagues around the country who are walking away deflated. They’re second guessing things. Not here. We walk away so proud of what we accomplished.”

More than one supporter promised to continue fighting for Perriello if he chooses to run again.

“If you do it again, we’re here for you,” volunteer JJ Towler said.

Another supporter, Glen Henderson of Albemarle County, remarked that Perriello was the only congressman in the country to get a mid-term campaign visit from President Barack Obama.

“We’ll always have that Friday night, won’t we?” Perriello said, as the supporters cheered. “It meant a lot to people in this community and across the district.”

Speaking with reporters afterward, Perriello added that Obama called him on election night after it was clear the congressman would not be returning for another term.

“[Obama] said that he really appreciated my service to community and country and hoped that I would continue to find some way to serve. And that he appreciated me being there when the country was on the brink of being in a depression and voted to hold the line to prevent that depression,” Perriello said. “I told him that I’ll always side with the problem-solvers over the partisans anytime.”

Given the vitriol he faced, several wondered if Perriello has any regrets.

“It was a great honor to serve,” he said. “I feel like I gave it everything that I have. I don’t regret having done this. Some people definitely said, ‘You must be sorry you ever got into politics in the first place.’ But it was a really cool thing.”