Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor Loses Primary To Fairly Random Teabagger Dave Brat

Not many people saw it coming and typically lame and incompetent Republican polling firms declared authoritatively that Cantor had nothing too worry about. This was the Washington Post hours before the polls closed in VA-07: "A conservative challenger is expected to fall far short of defeating House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) in Tuesday’s congressional primary. Disorganization and poor funding have stymied the campaign of tea party activist David Brat, even as he tapped into conservative resentment toward a party leader who has been courting the Republican right for years… The question in this race is how large Cantor’s margin of victory will be. If he wins by more than 20 points, it will likely quell rumblings about his popularity back home. If Brat falls within 10 points of the seven-term congressman, it could stoke them." Besides, Cantor spent $5 million to Brat's $122,793, albeit much of it outside the district. Still… Cantor's right hand man was recently deposed as county chairman at the local convention and Cantor himself had been running up against a wall of boos at Republican meetings all over the district-- loud, consistent boos from people hopelessly angry at the world and empowered by Hate Talk Radio.

Wall Street has plenty of devoted handmaidens in Congress, but Eric Cantor was near the very top of the heap and they will miss him more than anyone else. Since 1990, the only House Member who has taken more money from the Finance Sector than Cantor was Boehner. The banksters gave Boehner $9,797,914 and Cantor $8,492,465. This cycle, these are the top half dozen House Members who have been most substantially bribed by the Financial Sector. They love Eric Cantor-- and will miss him dearly, although it's likely he will be working for Wall Street by next year, just the way Rahm Emanuel did, when he left government "service" briefly.

In the end, Brat beat him 35,787 (55.6%) to 28,631 (44.4%). Brat beat him everywhere in the district and led him from the time the first precinct was counted. Turnout went from 47,719 in 2012, to 65,008 and Cantor got nearly 10,000 fewer votes than he did in 2012! Yesterday, with turnout up in every single county in the district, Cantor was never ahead and never even came close to catching up. Pity incompetent DCCC chair Steve Israel was recruiting absurd Blue Dogs to run in far redder districts that VA-07 and ignoring Cantor's vulnerabilities. He has no viable candidate to run against the teabagger now, mostly because he undermined and turned off local Virginia Democrats last cycle who ran Wayne Powell, the first Democrat to ever hold Cantor to under 60%. But, thanks to Israel, Brat gets no opponent after Cantor's closest call ever. Last year Democrat Ralph Northam beat teabagger E.W. Jackson in VA-07, 50.6% to 49.4%. Imagine if Pelosi had bothered to fire Israel after his debacle in 2012 and hire a competent DCCC Chair! Early this year, Brat was telling the National Review "I want to be Eric Cantor's term limit." Worth rereading in light of what happened last night. Apparently, Steve Israel never bothered.

Brat looks to have a better shot than anyone who has tried to unseat the majority leader thus far. “This is probably the first time that Eric has had a credible opponent with a comparable education and background,” says Amanda Chase, Cantor’s former political director.

She adds that defeating Cantor is difficult for a variety of reasons. For one, though some of the majority leader’s moves have rankled grassroots activists in his district, he’s highly regarded among establishment Republicans. He also has a preternatural gift for fundraising, Chase adds, and, naturally, there’s his name recognition.

That said, Brat has a few interesting factors working in his favor. First, he’s expecting support from some of the deep-pocketed outside groups that have long been frustrated with the current Republican leadership. Brat couldn’t speak on the record about which groups he has met with, but he tells NRO that the political figures and organizations that have indicated interest in his candidacy are “as big as they get.”

“I think it’s safe to say it will definitely rattle some cages when it comes out,” he says.

He tells me he intends to target Cantor for his support of the Ryan–Murray budget deal, as well as his stances on immigration reform. He’ll also go after the majority leader on the Affordable Care Act. “He hasn’t moved the ball down the field at all,” Brat says.

“He had two CRs at the end, one in favor of the shutdown and one opposed to the shutdown at the same time,” Brat continues. “And that’s fairly symbolic of unprincipled leadership. I mean, that’s not a leadership position, where you’re on Side A and Side B at the same time and you’ve got your finger up in the air, checking which way the wind is blowing.”



Brat’s background should make him especially appealing to conservative organizations. He chairs the department of economics and business at Randolph-Macon College and heads its BB&T Moral Foundations of Capitalism program. The funding for the program came from John Allison, the former CEO of BB&T (a financial-services company) who now heads the Cato Institute. The two share an affinity for Ayn Rand: Allison is a major supporter of the Ayn Rand Institute, and Brat co-authored a paper titled “An Analysis of the Moral Foundations in Ayn Rand.” Brat says that while he isn’t a Randian, he has been influenced by Atlas Shrugged and appreciates Rand’s case for human freedom and free markets.

His academic background isn’t all economics, though. Brat got a business degree from Hope College in Holland, Mich., then went to Princeton seminary. Before deciding to focus on economics, he wanted to be a professor of systematic theology and cites John Calvin, Karl Barth, and Reinhold Niebuhr as influences.

And he says his religious background informs his views on economics. “I’ve always found it amazing how we have the grand swath of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and we lost moral arguments on the major issue of our day,” he says, referring to fiscal-policy issues.

Brat also has experience in Virginia politics. He worked as a volunteer in the office of state senator Walter Stosch from 2005 to 2012, advising him on education policy, and he has served on the Governor’s Board of Economists since he was appointed to the position in 2006 by then-governor Tim Kaine. He has campaigned for a number of Republican candidates in Virginia, including Ken Cuccinelli and Stosch, and he himself ran for the Virginia House of Delegates in a 2011 special election.

Brat can expect backing from much of the Virginia grassroots, especially the libertarian and tea-party activists who have long been frustrated with the state party’s leaders. “It’s a big decision to fire your congressman and replace him with somebody else,” says Larry Nordvig, head of the Richmond Tea Party, “but I think people are tired of hearing the rhetoric and seeing the opposite of what they’re looking for in a conservative leader.”

He adds that there’s also frustration in grassroots circles with Cantor’s lack of responsiveness. “He is the king of form letters,” Nordvig says. “If you write to him, if you call, you get a form letter back that is obviously not addressing your issue.”

While Nordvig’s group doesn’t endorse candidates, he tells me he plans to support Brat and expects many of his members-- the bulk of whom live in Cantor’s district-- to coalesce behind him as well. He adds that Brat received a warm welcome at the last Richmond Tea Party meeting.

“There was almost a collective sigh of relief,” Nordvig says. “People were like, ‘Finally! Finally we have a solid candidate to challenge Cantor.’”

Anti-immigration Republicans and the party's powerful contingent of racists are trying to claim Cantor lost because he "favored" immigration reform, despite the fact that he campaigned on blocking it. It sure didn't hurt Lindsey Graham last night who is a total immigration reform supporter and campaigned on it-- and slaughtered a gaggle of Tea Party bigots in his South Carolina primary. So why did Cantor lose? As one DC insider explained "He's just an unlikeable prick." [Just hours after his historic primary loss, Cantor announced that he would be resigning as Majority Leader at the end of July.]