David Brat, the man who defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for the Republican nomination in Virginia’s seventh congressional district Tuesday night, is an economics professor at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland.
Until he announced his plans to challenge Cantor in 2014, Brat had almost no formal political experience. He started sitting on the Virginia Governor Board of Economists under Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine. He graduated with a Ph. D. in economics from American University in 1995 after obtaining a master’s degree of divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1990 and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Hope College in Michigan.
Brat’s opposition to Cantor’s congressional was multi-pronged, according to National Review Online, which interviewed him in January after he announced his plan to run. But immigration reform has dominated the headlines. Brat said in May that Cantor was “the number one cheerleader for amnesty in Congress,” the Huffington Post reported.
“I think that the working definition (of amnesty) out there is the pathway to legalization and citizenship,” Brat told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd on Tuesday hours before his upset. “In that instance, Eric Cantor is the author of House’s principles which allows for 6.5 million illegals to become legal and gain a pathway to citizenship.”
“Eric of course in the primary for the last two weeks says that he’s against all of this, and he’s even against all of his own bills that he’s written,” he added. “But I think the voters know and we’re having overwhelming success here today.”
He also criticized Cantor for his support for the Ryan-Murray budget deal that followed the end of last fall’s government shutdown and for not doing enough to stop Obamacare.
“He had two CRs at the end, one in favor of the shutdown and one opposed to the shutdown at the same time,” he told NRO. “And that’s fairly symbolic of unprincipled leadership… 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.”
In early May, according to the Washington Post, Brat had $40,000 in his campaign coffers. Cantor had more than $2 million. But at the end of the Virginia primary on Tuesday night, he topped Cantor by 12 percentage points: 56 percent to 44 percent.
He had earned the endorsements of some major conservative media figures including Ann Coulter, Mark Levin and Laura Ingraham. But he no-showed when asked to appear in front of anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist, the Washington Post reported — because he had final exams upcoming at his school.
“I wish Dave could do this full time, but that’s not the reality of the situation,” Zach Werrell, Brat’s campaign manager, said. “We have a full-time operation but he has a job. Professional politicians like Eric Cantor can campaign all the time; we’re lay people.”
Correction: This post previously misidentified Brat’s divinity degree as being from Princeton University. He received the degree from Princeton Theological Seminary.
Ooh, that being against the ACA is going to make him so relevant even if he gets elected.
Unfortunately, he probably will be elected, as his district is full of simple suburbanites. These are people of the subdivision. The common clay of the new South. You know… morons.
You are so good. And they are so dumb!
Given that district, he’ll get elected with no problem. As much as I detested Cantor, he at least had the ability to discern when ideology needed to be set aside to prevent economic calamity.
This douchebag is a true believer in the Cruz mold. So much for the notion that the GOP “establishment” had successfully put down the Tea Party insurgency. For all intents and purposes now, the Tea Party controls the Republican Party. Don’t be surprised if the new GOP-controlled House tries to get rid of Boehner after next January.
I defer to the people here who know the district but are they crazy enough to vote for him in the general? Salazar (contemporary or Mussolini and Franco) was an economist, may he burn in everlasting hell. Not sure yet but I strongly suspect Brat may be there with him.
I just watched a short snippet of a campaign appearance Brat had… the guy is pretty smooth; he doesn’t strike me as the kind of Akin-style moron who’s going to put his foot in his mouth over rapey shit. He’s also talking a populist economic game, which will make him seem as though he’s not going to be totally in the pocket of rich corporate interests. Oh, the voters in his district are going to be in for a rude surprise if they vote for him on that basis because he’ll be Kochsucking as soon as he takes the oath.