V
irginia
C
apitol
C
onnections
, S
ummer
2014
4
National and indeed international media
descended onto the campus of Randolph-
Macon College in Ashland the morning after
the surprising upset in the 7th congressional
district’s Republican primary, hoping to
find intriguing story lines about a most
unexpected general election contest between
two R-MC professors. With few students on
campus in the summer, reporters walked our
leafy campus looking for someone besides
other reporters to interview. The college
was made famous overnight, and faculty
members like us were inundated with both
press inquiries and e-mail messages from
friends and colleagues across the country.
Economics professor Dave Brat’s
primary victory made incumbent Eric
Cantor the first sitting House Majority
Leader to lose a re-election bid, let alone a
primary contest. Indeed, few members of the
House of Representatives lose in primaries.
According to Robert Boatright, author of
Getting Primaried
(University of Michigan
Press, 2014), only three or four incumbents
fall victim in primaries each election cycle. Brat’s convincing win by
eleven percentage points, followed by Cantor’s resignation as Majority
Leader and the presumed impact the election had on policy issues
ranging from immigration to Medicaid expansion was certainly enough
to make big headlines. But the additional discovery that the Democrats
had just selected Jack Trammell, an Associate Professor and Director
of Disability Services at the College as their candidate made the story
also about Randolph-Macon.
What explains Brat’s victory? National media focused on
conservatives’ unhappiness with the House GOP leadership’s apparent
willingness to compromise with the Obama administration on issues
like immigration and debt. These issues were raised by the Brat
campaign, but our sense is that a more important factor was that Cantor
appeared distant from his voters, a classic case of “losing touch with
the folks back home.” Randolph-Macon student Elliot Meyer has been
shadowing the Brat campaign as part of a research project directed
by Lauren Bell, and noted that candidate Brat did not emphasize the
immigration issue on the stump. What Meyer has found is that the
number of Tea Party identifiers in a district is related to the likelihood
of a primary challenge, and that the Seventh District saw an impressive
growth in Tea Party groups since 2010. (The Canadian Press declared
Meyer “the college kid who forecasted the electoral earthquake that
rattled U.S. politics.”) Dave Brat was able to tap that growing source of
support crucial in a low-turnout election like a primary.
But Brat also benefitted from Cantor’s own missteps. It was
Cantor’s anti-Brat advertising blitz that made Brat a household name
and a viable challenger. Moreover, Cantor’s campaign staff trusted
polls it commissioned but that did not account for Virginia’s open
primaries. Shown the resulting poll results that indicated he’d win by
a large margin, Cantor spent election morning inWashington, DC, not
in the district.
Looking forward to the general election, prospects for Professor
Brat appear good. The district was drawn to benefit Republicans, and
generally votes that way, although in recent elections Democratic
candidates (Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, Tim Kaine in 2012, and
WaynePowell running against Cantor in2012) have polledover 40%, and
R-MC Professor Goes to Congress:
But Which One?
By Lauren Bell and brian Turner
bell
Turner
