would step down and give cantor the job. that conversation is now moot. in just a little less than an hour ago, this race was officially called by the associated press for eric cantor's tea party challenger. an economist named dave brat. eric cantor has served in the house since 2001. he was first electioned in 2000, was sworn in on 2000 wn. number two republican since republicans took control of the house in 2011. tonight it appears eric cantor's career will be over. really, nobody expected this result coming into tonight, but he did concede the race with shock on his face. >> thank you. thank you. obviously, we came up short. serving as the seventh district congressman and then having the majority to be leader has been one of the highest hoppers of my life. i know there's a lot of long faces tonight, and it's disappointing, sure, but i believe in this country. i believe there's opportunity around the next corner for all of us. so i look forward to continuing to fight with all of us for the things we believe in, for the conservative cause, because those are the answers to the problems so many of us are facing. >> eric cantor represents a very conservative, very republican district in virginia, and aside from this little primary issue, the seat had been considered to be very safe heading into november at least. in the closing weeks of this campaign, he started to fight increasingly hard against this insurgent campaign from a first-time candidate, a local economists professor named david brat. his issue was immigration. he accused cantor of supporting immigration. he said it was amnesty, that president obama was helping get amnesty, whether it was that or other dynamics at work, chuck todd highlighted low feturnout, and regardless, it was a one-issue campaign. eric cantor spent somewhere in neighborhood of $1 million. dave brat just addressed his supporters a short time ago saying this is the happiest moment of his life, but again, the big news, the news that has landed like a political bombshell is eric cantor of virm verge has lost his seat in congress. just an amazing development. joining us now is chuck todd. hest of the daily rundown on msnbc. who is declaring themselves the winner? >> the winner are those fighting a major immigration reform. that is the crowd that feels they have made the loudest statement with this win. there's going to be a lot of this is a tea party victory. this isn't like mississippi. there was this professional tea pa party crowd. there's a difference. he tapped to the immigration issue which is a much more organic movement inside the republican base. a little separate. sometimes we conflate it because anyone that's not establishment gets labeled as the tea party. you didn't have professional groups in there and we had this perfect storm of what is in the news at the moment. dave brat, what was his proof that eric cantor was quote/unquote for amnesty. i think he used it about every fourth word when i interviewed him. he was supporting the treme act, the american version of the dream act. it's about children brought across the border illegally. but people it wasn't their fault. what's the current crisis the border is dealing. it's been lighting up talk radio. you have an urgency to the issue if you're running this truly more grassroots than some ort this other stuff. when you're not spending $100,000, that's grassroots party. >> how does the republican leadership thread between these sort of competing imperatives? obvio obviously, in a single district, somebody can unseat somebody like eric cantor who has been there for seven years, specifically on immigration. we saw national polling showing even republican voters like the idea of immigration reform. republican voters even broadly won't support against someone because they supported immigration reform. it's working in these microcosmic ways. doesn't reflect in the national polling and numbers on the issue. how does somebody like cantor ever do both of those things, win at home and help the party win nationally? >> he couldn't figure it out and he tried. there have been some who e-mailed me said and don't declare it as dead. eric cantor was helping but he didn't know how to back it. he was trying to have it both ways, where look at lindsay graham. he's unapologetic about immigration reform and he's doing fine tonight. i think ultimately, again, you had everything come together. one candidate channeling that out outrage, and it's in the rural south, in these places i think you're seeing where immigration has more of a bite. why doesn't it show up in the national polls? because the south -- that's why it doesn't show up in the national polls? you'll see the south is on a different place on immigration than anywhere else in the runt rhee, particularly the west and northeast. we have been watching it in the primaries, primarily, immigration is the most animating issue in order to at least talk to the base or have a conversation the base of the republican party. >> can i ask you about the way eric cantor has done his job as majority leader. he's done his job trying to wrangle different factions of the party. deciding who is allowed to vote yes or no when it is difficult for those members. how did he do in terms of managing factions in congress. is that a thing that people need outs on? is that something that hurt him with this insurgency at home? >> it certainly made it easy for mr. brat to say this guy is the establishment. look what he's doing. he's a wheeler-dealer. and that was eric cantor's job, and he did a better job than anybody else in leadership in figuring out how to straddle the establishment on the fence. he had a better relationship with the committee than john boehner did. he was able to make the deals when nissary. keep things at bay, particularly, i would argue, over the last 18 months. it was a difficult job for these guys in 2011 and 2012. you saw them licking their wounds, become more cooperative with the leadership. when it comes to cantor specifically, he did lose contract. he couldn't get his candidate elected chairman of enrico county seventh congrengzal district convention. he lost to dave brat's candidate. that was sign number one. there's one reporter who said over the last year, eric cantor would have to send a press release to let people know he was coming, he didn't come at often because he was traveling the country, helping other raise money. doing the things keeping him in power and racking up chips so he could become speaker. the money was on boehner reti retiring in spring. there was nobody else who was going to have the votes to topple cantor. now it throws it wide open. unless paul ryan wants this thing, and he may be too close to the immigration issue. unless he wants it, there's a huge vacuum for those of us republicans. >> you don't have to look hard for new stories over the next six months. >> thank you, my friend. all right, i want to bring in larry sab adough, director of the center for politics at the university of virginia. whenever anybody thinks virginia politics, we want to know what larry is going to say to explain it. thanks for being with us. >> sure, rachel. >> let me ask you about the seventh district and whether they should have seen this, whether it shouldn't have been such a shock. should eric cantor have been seen as more vulnerable as he was? >> it's a 57% republican district, at least judging by the 2012 presidential election. rirs not overwhelmingly surprising. if i could focus opsomething chuck pointed out, we look at issues like immigration to draw the straws together, whether it's mississippi senator or this eric cantor race, but chuck pointed out something important. eric cantor not only lost touch with some of his district and because of his travel, but he had a machine. this was a real machine, and the canter machine in seventh like all political machines over time steps on toes. when you step on enough toes and create enough enemies, you create conditions for a tremendous upset which is in virginia, the biggest upset in primaries since 1966. >> in terms of machine politics. one of the great advantages is supposed to be turnout. you have your tendrils into so many of the institutions that you're able to use the existing infrastructure in your congressional district or your city or state to get people to turn out even when they don't particularly look enthusiastic about you. watching at these as the last votes come in, seems like a small turnout. 38,000 something votes for brat, 28,000 for cantor. the turnout overall wasn't there. is that the mathematical key to why he didn't win? >> obviously, it's who did turn out. 4 in virginia for primary turnouts, that's a high turnout. so no, i don't think it could be blamed on low turnout. it was the fact that david brat's people were really charged up. we did see evidence of that. chuck mentioned the reicho county convention where the chair, the longtime chairman of the seventh district who was a cantor ally was tossed out on his ear, and cantor himself was booed in front of his family, by many of the delegates. this is unhurt of. he had run that district like a personal preserve. i think he and his people fooled themselves into believing they could do what you said. use that machine that always worked, at least since 2011, and generate enough to overcome the brat forces, the tea party forces. i've got to say, though, this is -- in this state, as we have seen in mississippi and a lot of other places, this is a party at war with itself. it really is at war with itself. i'm old enough to remember when the democratic party was at war with itself in the '60s and '70s. >> let me ask you one question that seems maybe slightly beside the point at this point, but the democrats when it looked like eric cantor had a tight hold on the seat, didn't necessarily say they were going to run somebody against cantor in november. just a couple days ago, they picked a professor at the same university where david brat is a professor. again, this is sort of beside the point, but is david brat, the slaggen slayer, going to be able to walk into the seat, or is this a fight between two unknown professors from the sage college fighting it out in the general? >> brat is certainly the favorite because it's a 57% republican district, but it is amusing this small college is going to have its own congressman. and all i can say is i'm glad i'm not there because the faculty wars are bad enough when you don't have two faculty members running against each other. >> thank you so much for being with us tonight. i really appreciate it. >> just an absolute political stunner tonight. one of the biggest upsets in modern history. the seventh district, which you would never think was the big thing, except it was the pirch for eric cantor for the last seven years, and tonight, he lost his seat. he lost to a tea party challenger named dave brat. there's some question whether he could run a write-in campaign to hold on to his seat. whether it's possible, they gave no impression he was going to do that. amazing. much more to come. stay with us. all stations come over to mission a for a final go. this is for real this time. step seven point two one two. verify and lock. command is locked. five seconds. three, two, one. standing by for capture. the most innovative software on the planet... dragon is captured. is connecting today's leading companies to places beyond it. siemens. answers. the ambulance racing by you. the ambulance chaser... chasing the ambulance. a rollerblader with headphones who's oblivious to everything. the cab driver who's checking out the rollerblader. it's 360 degrees of chaos out there. but with driver-assist technology, including a blind spot system and a rear-view camera, the ford fusion will help tell you when it's coming. the house majority leader eric cantor has lost his seat in the house of representatives tonight in an absolute stunner out of virginia. we overuse the word stunning and shocking in political coverage, but tonight, we have earned both of those words. we're going to have much more ahead on the story tonight including what this does immediately to the republican power structure in washington, and that's next. what they're lid what they believe in? well, odds are you're wrong. what's on the outside and what's on the inside can be very different. the more you know. wethey were a littlehorizons to mbit skeptical.ss, what they do actually is rocket science. but at ge capital we also bring expertise from across ge, like lean process engineers we asked who does what, when, where, and why that step first? ideas for improvement started pouring out. with a little help from us, they actually doubled their output speed. if you just need a loan, just call a bank. at ge capital, we're builders. and what we know... can help you grow. and i'm his mom at the dog park. the kids get trail mix, and here's what you get after a full day of chasing that cute little poodle from down the street. mm hmm delicious milo's kitchen chicken meatballs. they look homemade, which he likes almost as much as making new friends yes, i'll call her. aww, ladies' man. milo's kitchen. made in the usa with chicken or beef as the number one ingredient. the best treats come from the kitchen. political ads are forever. they are forever even when the candidates themselves wish they would go away. they're an indelible record of what politicians say and promise and allege and screw up. so for example, this year in kentucky's senate race, senator mitch mcconnell tried to disappear a screwed up ad where he showed players from duke university celebrating a championship instead of players from the university of cent kke cent. he convinced youtube to block just about the only record of the embarrassing mistake of an ad, but a blogger yanked that clip out of the memory hole and now mitch mcconnell is stuck with everybody being able to see the campaign ad he tried to hide. video is forever. in politics, it's the closest thing we have to a permanent record. the time you called some guy macaca when you got annoyed with him at a campaign event. that's forever. that time you were just trying to flip pancakes, and whoops, there he is, that's forever. that time you were mitch mcconnell running for senate in kentucky and you shows duke celebrating their win instead of kentucky, that's forever. that time you were a congressional wig shot used to getting things your own way for your district, but you go to your own district, and they boo you and heckle you like crazy, that's all on tape. that's forever. >> when i sit here and i listen to mr. brat speak, i hear the inaccuracies of families here -- [ booing ] >> we are about a country of free speech, so decency is also part of this. >> that was congressman, incumbent congressman eric cantor last month, running to try to hold on to his congressional seat in the seventh district of virginia. he won seven terms in a row in that district. he's the house majority leader in line to become speaker after john boehner, and we learned after the race he couldn't go home to his local republicans in his district without getting booed. while congressman cantor was working away at the top tiers of republicans in washington, this is what his challenger dave brat was telling people at home. this is what dave brat called on the doorstep of cantor's home office in virginia. you'll see this was a true shoestring operation by brat. you'll see that in part by the way they have to flip the camera around midstream so it will come out okay when they post it on youtube. >> eric cantor's promise of citizenship for illegal immigrants has opened the floodgates on our border. he has repeatedly over and over again promised citizenship for those who enter our country illegally. he continues to demand citizenship for illegal candidates and continues to erase our borders. >> heading into tonight's primary, brat had been blasting away at cantor over immigration. amnesty and immigration over and over again. and eric cantor responded to him. responded to this tea party challenge in his home district that was about eric cantor being soft on immigrants. eric cantor, and i think this is important, he responded to this challenge in a two-track way. the first way was in his political ads. the video. the videotaped evidence of the campaign that eric cantor is smart enough to know would be his legacy forever. and in a way, it would be the legacy forever for the republican party as a whole since he is their majority leader in congress. he got very risk-averse when it came to putting things on video. the ads eric cantor ran in the race werequetoast things you have seen in your life. >> most new jobs are created by small business, but too many in washington want to raise their taxes. let's empower people, not government, and we'll kick our economy into gear again. this is eric cantor and i approve this message. >> that's the ad equivalent of pleated chinos. you see it and it disappears immediately. i want good things, not bad things. join me. you run for office, you pick where you're going to take a risk. eric cantor chose not to take a risk on tape. his campaign videos and campaign ads were the political equivalent of have a nice daise. i'm already a congressman. i look like a congressman, send me back there, no harm done. that's one track of how he tried to handle his tea party challenger. the tea party challenger had no money to run his own ads, but when cantor was running them, that's what they looked like. he was killing him press conference after press conference even after they learned how to hold the iphone the right way. and he ran this race as a smiley faced emoetemoteicon that says nothing, but here is the other track he ran simultaneously. over the past few weeks eric cantor has been mailing out these flyers in his district. he's not posting them on youtube for the national media to chew over. he only did this as direct mail. he quietly, proverbially blowing up your mail box with the message no matter what you might have heard, eric cantor is against immigration reform. eric cantor is torching immigration reform. eric cantor is burning immigration reform to the ground. eric cantor is rejecting president obama's latest immigration scheme. quote, eric cantor is the number one guy standing between them and the american people on immigration reform. he would like you to know that. that has been the character of his campaign, at least as far as he mailed it to his constituents' mailboxes. he didn't put it on the internet where it would end up on the interwebs and tvs. no, what you might find online is, ah, he seems like a nice man, but the way he was actually trying to campaign for office at home was much more hard core. immigration reform over my dead party. polls closed in virginia at 7:00 p.m. eastern tonight. it was basically just over an hour later when we got the absolutely shocking news. eric cantor, how majority leader. seven-term incumbent lost his seat, the republican nomination to tpea tea party challenger ag who hit him over and over again on the idea of immigration. the polls closed at 7:00. the announcement an hour later. theoretically, he could run as a write-in, but in his concession speech, he gave no indication he would try that. this seems like the end of the road for him. eric cantor's fate as a member of congress as a consequential story because he's the leader of the republicans in the house of representatives, and they're in charge of the house of representatives, but there's this question of how we extrapolate from the story. it's an important story in its own right, but watching this unfold in the last few weeks, watching how cantor was trying to publicly campaign one way and secretly campaign in another, there's been questions whether this primary campai