Earlier this year, Democrats won a major victory in the 37th State Senate District of Virginia when Dave Marsden defeated Republican Steve Hunt. The seat was left open when Republican Ken Cuccinelli was elected Attorney General in the fall.

Heading into Election Day, most observers were predicting a Republican victory. Instead the seat became the first legislative district in the country to change hands in 2010. Democrats, led by Majority Leader Richard Saslaw -- a DLCC Board Member -- clearly ran a great campaign, particularly in terms of field.

But an innovative tactic employed by the Democratic Caucus may have also been a factor -- in the days before the election, the district was saturated with Internet advertising:

The caucus spent $15,000 on a brief Web ad campaign, a significant expense considering it was targeted to a small region and ran for only about a week leading before election day on January 12. [Marsden Campaign Manager Mark] Henson suggested the ads helped Marsden eke out the win. "Online advertising contributed to that perfect storm that let us pull off this upset," he said, also stressing the importance of all campaign components. Henson said, "I'm definitely more likely now to dedicate more resources toward online advertising."

Majority Leader Saslaw was a key advocate for employing the online ads, pushing the Caucus to pay for the spending as a in-kind contribution to the campaign. In total, the $15,000 buy generated almost 8 million Web impressions.