his opponent painted him as a corrupt symbol of a corrupt congress, and his opponent was right. joining me now, sam seder, host of majority report, and jess mcintosh with emily s list. lizza had this interesting piece where he talked about the populist campaign that brat ran, in which he talked about the fact that big business and big government were in with each other. he talked about wall street and talked about the fact that cantor wasn t on the side of the little guy. and i think there s a lot of there s a lot of populist anger against congress and eric cantor kind of represented the worst of it. and i spoke to a couple of local reporters from that district today. and they both had stories, along the lines of, cantor when he would rarely visit the district, would come in with an suv and a bunch of bodyguards, and literally shove people out of the way. and so i think that kind of expanded upon that narrative.
virginia s seventh congressional district, 56% to 44%. he lost to a heretofore unknown tea party economics professor named david brat, a man who had been thought to be the longest of long shots. cantor raised more than $5.4 million for his re-election race and spent more than $5 million of it. compared to the just over $200,000 raised by brat. that s a difference of 26-1. in fact, and this is one of the most telling details about the race, eric cantor s campaign actually spent more money at steakhouses, about $168,000, than david brat spent on his entire campaign. an internal poll by cantor s campaign two weeks ago showed cantor up by a whopping 34 points. and the washington post wrote ahead of the vote, the only question in this race is, quote, how long cantor s margin of victory will be. eric cantor is the first house majority leader ever to lose a primary. pretty much nobody predicted his downfall. and that includes the big national tea party groups, which spent zero dollars on po
million for his re-election race and spent more than $5 million of it. compared to the just over $200,000 raised by brat. that s a difference of 26-1. in fact, and this is one of the most telling details about the race, eric cantor s campaign actually spent more money at steakhouses, about $168,000, than david brat spent on his entire campaign. an internal poll by cantor s campaign two weeks ago showed cantor up by a whopping 34 points. and the washington post wrote ahead of the vote, the only question in this race is, quote, how long cantor s margin of victory will be. eric cantor is the first house majority leader ever to lose a primary. pretty much nobody predicted his downfall. and that includes the big national tea party groups, which spent zero dollars on political expenditures against cantor. david brat wasn t really even on the radar screen of national tea party groups, in part because he skipped a pair of meetings with conservative leaders last month. it seems that brat, col