House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, despite having full-fledged support from the national GOP, lost his district’s primary this past Tuesday evening. Through his support of reasonable debt negotiations and aims to tackle immigration reform in a meaningful way, Cantor grew to be a fairly popular figure nationally. However, on a local level, Cantor was described by his opponent, Dave Brat, as smug and disconnected from area voters. One would have a hard time arguing with Brat’s analysis based on Cantor’s behavior in the race. He opted to outspend Brat while spending much of his time in Washington, rather than traveling home to actually campaign with his constituency. Along with these actions, which many Virginian voters deemed insulting, Cantor’s staff even resorted to referring to Brat as a “liberal college professor,” despite Cantor being a much more moderate candidate. On the day of the primary election, with his aides predicting a victory over Brat of at least 10 percent, Cantor even decided not to travel to his home district to rally last-minute support.
In a nation where about 90 percent of incumbents who seek re-election are granted it, one has to ask what kind of impact this will have on moderate Republicans, of whom Cantor was a shining example. Despite a growing number of Americans who favor conservative fiscal policy paired with a more liberal social outlook, as reported in a Gallup poll last year, these moderate Republicans may be forced to run more and more conservative campaigns during the primary season.
Even looking at the 2012 presidential election, this pattern stays true in that Mitt Romney was forced for much of the presidential campaign to retract some of his more conservative stances that were taken to secure his party’s nomination. After all, those who are likely to vote in elections such as primaries are the base members of parties and find themselves heavily on one ideological side, but general elections involve a much broader voter pool. The Tea Party’s impact on Republican primary races has shaped the national scene since the group first appeared, but it has perhaps never dealt a blow quite this severe to the GOP.
Looking back to Virginia’s 7th District, the Democratic Party, previously only offering up candidate Jack Trammell by default in the expectation that the incumbent would inevitably trounce him, now looks to him as someone able to score a major political victory for the party. Even more troubling for the Republican Party is the now dim hope of passing meaningful immigration reform without Cantor’s presence. Should the party not be able to regain its composure and find a new member to make such reform possible with the GOP name on it, they stand to miss out on a huge opportunity to gain the support of ethnic voters, an easily exploited weak spot.
The Tea Party has once again thrown a hard curveball into the national political game and forced Republicans and Democrats alike to take notice that its grass-roots campaigns can truly make a difference, which, in this case, was a huge one. Virginia has just become home to one of the most interesting congressional races in the nation, and it is a long road to November.
