The National Republican Congressional Committee went up Thursday with its first ad in the Commonwealth’s 5th-district contest between Rep. Virgil Goode (R) and attorney Tom Perriello (D).

The $100,000 ad buy, in what had been considered a safely Republican district, comes after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has dropped more than $300,000 on television ads in the contest as polls showed the race tightening to within single digits.

Although raised in the district, Perriello earned his law degree in Connecticut at Yale University, and after school he worked for a nonprofit organization in New York. Goode has made Perriello’s northern connections a key component of his attacks, calling Perriello “New York slick” and out of touch with the values of the south-central Virginia district.

The new NRCC ad, which is running in the district’s Roanoke market, picks up on that line of attack.

“New York lawyer Tom Perriello is very liberal,” the ad states. It goes on to attack Perriello for supporting gay marriage and taking “big money from liberal special interests” and for accepting campaign donations from “corrupt New York Congressman Charlie Rangel [D].”

Referencing the Democrat’s work with nonprofit groups, the ad states, “Perriello founded a liberal advocacy group that ran ads on Arab TV apologizing for the actions of U.S. troops. Tom Perriello, may be perfect for New York but too liberal for us.”