You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
The Tea Party's biggest upset of the year came Tuesday -- and the organization's new hero is a professor. David Brat, a professor of economics at Randolph-Macon College, won the Republican Party primary for the Congressional seat held by Eric Cantor, the House majority leader who had been a likely candidate for speaker of the house at some point in the future. Brat accused Cantor of not being tough enough on immigration issues, and Cantor's defeat may not bode well for efforts to get the House of Representatives to take up immigration reform.
During the campaign, Cantor criticized Brat as a "liberal college professor" but the move may have backfired. Brat's views are hard to call anything but conservative and he ran to the right of Cantor, who is himself viewed as conservative. The group FactCheck.org found that Cantor's characterization was unfair.
Brat's Democratic opponent in the general election is Jack Trammell, another Randolph-Macon professor.
