The seismic political consequences of Eric Cantor’s stunning loss
3. The “establishment strike back” storyline will disappear…. In the space of the last week, the narrative that the establishment has finally figured out how to beat the tea party has exploded. First, state Sen. Chris McDaniel finished ahead of Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran in the state’s GOP primary. Now, the Cantor loss. (And, on June 24, Cochran remains an underdog to McDaniel in the Magnolia State runoff.) A former Senate Appropriations Committee chairman and the second ranking Republican in the House both (potentially) losing in less than a month means that the primary victories of John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell over tea-party backed opponents earlier this year will be forgotten — or, at the very least, overshadowed.
4. ….Tea party challenges will surge. David Brat — and McDaniel if he wins — will become the newest tea party heroes, taking their places alongside the likes of Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Mike Lee (Utah). In the near term, that will embolden tea partiers who seemed dead in the water in their own attempts to take out incumbents. “What we have seen tonight in Virginia shows that no race should be taken for granted and all the money and position in the world doesn’t resonate with an electorate that is fed up with a Washington establishment that has abandoned conservative principles,” said Joe Carr, a conservative trying to knock off Sen. Lamar Alexander (R) in Tennessee. (To be clear: Attempting to ride the Brat coattails with a press release is one thing. Beating an incumbent like Alexander is something totally different.) In the longer term, there’s every reason to believe that other prominent members of the GOP leadership — in the House and Senate — will face tea-party challenges come 2016.
Washington Post – The Fix
6/10/14
Magnolia Tribune
