Live Blog Primary Tuesday: Eric Cantor losing to Tea Party Primary Challenger
Posted: June 10, 2014 Filed under: 2014 elections, Breaking News, Live Blog 49 Comments
This is breaking news. With 68% of the precinct reporting, it appears that Eric Cantor will lose his seat in Congress.Here’s some information on the race from earlier today.
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.
Brat, an economics professor, simply failed to show up to D.C. meetings with powerful conservative agitators last month, citing upcoming finals. He only had $40,000 in the bank at the end of March, according to first quarter filings. Cantor had $2 million.
Despite those shortcomings, Brat has exposed discontent with Cantor in the solidly Republican, suburban Richmond 7th Congressional District by attacking the lawmaker on his votes to raise the debt ceiling and end the government shutdown, as well as his support for some immigration reforms. At a May meeting of Republican activists in the district, Cantor was booed, and an ally he campaigned for was ousted as the local party chairman in favor of a tea party favorite
Cantor was assumed to be the next Republican Speak of the House should Boehner resign. Cantor lives in suburban Virginia.
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@AP has called the#VA07 race for Brat.@EricCantor loses in GOP primary
Another old school republican, Lindsey Graham, is on the ballot too and facing a tea party challenger tonight also.
Graham’s opponents are divided and getting little help from powerful anti-establishment outside groups.
With the most recent poll indicating Graham close to the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff, he spent the day before the primary on a bus tour through the conservative, voter-rich upstate region.
In his final campaign commercial before the primary, Graham touted his conservative credentials, which he said included support for “building the Keystone pipeline, opposing Obamacare, looking for answers on Benghazi, standing up for our military.”
Turn on the TV to watch the exploding talking heads of Washington.
In one of the biggest political upsets in recent memory, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his primary election on Tuesday to a political unknown who focused his campaign on Cantor’s support for a path to citizenship for the children of immigrants.
Randolph-Macon College economics professor Dave Brat won the Republican primary in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District. Brat had 56 percent of the vote to Cantor’s 44 percent when the Associated Press called the race just after 8 p.m.
Cantor’s defeat will send shockwaves throughout Washington. The House majority leader was one of the most well-known Republican figures in the country, reputed for his strategic acumen and political ambition. He wielded an immense amount of clout within the Capitol and was widely expected to one day seek to become the speaker of the House.
His primary was never expected to be seriously competitive, and his loss is catching everyone — from veterans of Virginia politics to longtime analysts in Washington — by surprise.
The speculation is that District Republicans did not like his squishy stand on immigration and his talk of le Republican “Dream Act”. He also was not spending a lot of time in the District itself.
The bad news about the winner via LGF.
The big news of the evening: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has lost the Virginia GOP primary to Tea Party challenger Dave Brat … a Christian Reconstructionist who cites 16th century theologian John Calvin as an influence. Just what we need, another extreme right wing religious fundamentalist in Congress.
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Amen, lost by a lot. So who belongs the house’s new majority leader, I wonder?
So who becomes?
I think it’s wide open. Paul Ryan?
The dead duck session could get more interesting now.
Boehner was supposedly retiring too,
I’m so excited! I had no idea this was happening. It’s my mom’s birthday and I haven’t been paying attention to the news today.
Good riddance, Eric Cantor!!
Just shows how out of touch everyone is in the Beltway media bubble that no one saw this coming. Even I thought this was a decent possibility.
I am going to have a shot, the kind from a bottle of whiskey.
Heh! I will join you!
Should have checked Las Vegas for the odds, hell they bet on everything.
I wonder if he can do a Lieberman?
Be interesting to find out.
Rachel just said that it’s not possible. Virginia has a sore loser law. He’d have to run a write in campaign.
Cantor is giving his farewell speech.
The Democrat running in that district…
Shit, he seems to be a phony.
HaHaHa…
John Cole @Johngcole 1m
You sir, are a moron. RT @David_Gergen With @GOPLeader Eric Cantor upset, House loses one of its best Republican thinkers & reformers.
Wait, since when Cantor is thinker and reformer? Oh, maybe for a Republican.
I can’t close my mouth. Wow. I never thought this would happen. These people freakin’ love Cantor around here. Wow.
Cantor seriously outspent Brat ($5.4 million vs $200k) and still lost. $2 million of that $5.4 million was PAC money. Brat had no PAC bucks at all.
Oh yeah! Cantor was running TV ads like crazy.
Congrats, Janice!
Great to be rid of him but the Tea Party a-hole is scarier. Really hoping the Dems find a good candidate. Might be an interesting election.
I was honestly thinking that Cantor was leaning toward the center recently in order to tee himself up to be the Veep on the Republican ticket. It would have been brilliant because it would have put Virginia in play for the Republicans. At this point Virginia is looking pretty blue for 2016.
Dem candidate is Jack Trammel, another professor from Randolph-Macon,
http://www.trammellforcongress.com/
Oh that’s right. A couple of Profs from a safety school. Awesome.
That school isn’t even accredited and he only has a master’s in divinity of all things.
Ahem.
Randolph-Macon College is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools – Commission on Colleges (SACS-COC) to award the bachelor of arts and bachelor of science degrees. Contact the Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, Georgia 30033-4097 or call 404-679-4500 for questions about the accreditation of Randolph-Macon College.
LOL
That’s better. Just gives undergrad degrees.
Trammell is Director of Disability Services at Randolph Macon, as well as a Sociology professor. I don’t know anything more about him but the fact that he has a focus on people with disabilities is a plus in my book.
Trammell was also a public school special education teacher. Another big plus, imo. That’s not a field people with no soul go into.
I agree; involvement in disability issues generally means your heart’s in the right place. And there’s still plenty of discrimination against people with deficits of some kind, and still lack of reasonable accommodation.
Brat has a PhD in Economics from American University (DC) and an MDiv from Princeton.
Weird, that’s not what one of his bios said
It’s from his faculty bio at Randolph Macon.
MDiv??? Maybe he was a chaplain. Kinda weird IMO.
Dante Estrada @Napsterrific 35m
I might just watch @Morning_Joe or read @ron_fournier tomorrow to find how Cantor’s loss is Obama’s fault
Is there a lot of jerry manandering going on in that district?
OMG yeah. That’s why I thought Cantor would never budge until he ran for Pres or Veep. It’s a solid Republican district. It would be seismic if it went to a Dem.
He had speaker of the house in the bag. Those teabaggers are nuts!
Exactly! The idiots cut off their noses despite their faces.
As an economist, I thought you’d appreciate this:
Asked whether he opposed a minimum wage, Mr. Brat said, “Um, I don’t have a well-crafted response on that one.”
Yeah, he’s an economist alright. lmao!!
He’s definitely not your usual economist.
Wow! Didn’t see this one coming. I’m betting a Democrat wins the seat in November.
Dave Brat = Dick Mourdock.
Luv that Beata!
I hope Lindsey Graham joins him.
I’m with you there, X!
I’m starting to feel better about the midterms this Nov. ……