everybody made last night and in this morning s papers, explaining what happened in virginia, i think it was an easy mistake to make, because the candidate who beat eric cantor in virginia last night, he did run a one-issue campaign against him. david brat s whole campaign against eric cantor was focused on immigration. that eric cantor wasn t tough enough on immigrants. now, this wasn t a very closely watched race, right? nobody anticipated that this was going to be something that changed the course of modern american politics in a huge way. most of the national press, if they knew anything at all about dave brat versus eric cantor, the only thing they knew was that dave brat was running a campaign based on opposing immigration. so, right, the result, when it came in, the one thing that everybody knew about the race, people just decided, oh, okay, that must be what explains what happened. that must explain it. dave brat, the only thing we know about him that he was running on immigrat
shock. a shock, by definition, is the kind of thing that knocks you offkilter, that makes you not think straight or see things clearly. and as the country and the political world was being hit with this shock wave about eric cantor last night, the initial explanatory narrative that sprung up to answer the obvious question, oh, my god, what just happened? the initial explanatory narrative seems to have been bluntly wrong. that s why i think it s important to recognize that this was a really big shock. it s easy to get things wrong when you are shocked and confused. but now that we ve had a day to actually look at and assess what happened, it seems like the initial explanation that everybody gave last night for why this happened, it just doesn t make sense. the rush to judgment that everybody made last night and in this morning s papers, explaining what happened in virginia, i think it was an easy mistake to make, because the candidate who beat eric cantor in virginia last night, he did
called harper, which is a republican firm, they also polled virginia as a state on the overall issue of supporting immigration reform in the state of virginia. and they found very similar numbers. again, they asked about two different versions of immigration reform and the support number in virginia, the support numbers were 2-1, 3-1 in favor. 60% of virginians said they d be more likely to vote for an elected official that supports immigration reform. only 23% said the they d be less likely. so how do you make sense of these numbers? contrary to all the beltway norms, all the initial shock punditry last night, this does not appear to have been a frenzy of anti-immigration sentiment in eric cantor s home state and home district that drove what happened last night. yes, immigration is what david brat ran on, but the polling says there s nothing magic about the issue of immigration that allowed him to win that seat. maybe david brat could have run a one-issue campaign on the debt ceiling
all the substantiative party actions of the party. nor did it serve to rebrand eric cantor himself as a man that might be desperate needed in washington. the history of eric cantor s time in republican leadership in washington is basically a marketing history. the one remarkable thing about his legacy, if you look at it with a cold eye, is just how frequently he announced he was defining a new brand for the republican party, while also not changing anything substantiative about what republicans were actually doing in washington. and changing what republicans actually do in washington, that is well within his power as the majority leader. he decides what gets voted on and what doesn t. but under his leadership, despite repeated attempts at looking new and fresh and awesome, what house republicans actually did was fecklessly repeal obamacare several dozen times and vote to restrict abortion rights as often as they could and otherwise lurch from self-made debt ceiling crisis to self-made
immigration reform, in fact, the more they seem to like it. and by huge numbers. and yes, this is public policy polling, which is a democratic leaning firm, but this does not appear to be an outlier. last year, ppp and another group called harper, which is a republican firm, they also polled virginia as a state on the overall issue of supporting immigration reform in the state of virginia. and they found very similar numbers. again, they asked about two different versions of immigration reform and the support number in virginia, the support numbers were 2-1, 3-1 in favor. 60% of virginians said they d be more likely to vote for an elected official that supports immigration reform. only 23% said the they d be less likely. so how do you make sense of these numbers? contrary to all the beltway norms, all the initial shock punditry last night, this does not appear to have been a frenzy of anti-immigration sentiment in eric cantor s home state and home district that drove what happened last