Republican House Majority Leader Loses Primary
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: The breaking news is political. This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon, breaking news. And this something a lot of people never saw coming. In a stunning upset, Eric Cantor has lost to his Tea Party in the Virginia primary, the number two Republican in the House, the man much of the GOP regards as the most conservative member of the House leadership, the man who was thought to be the next in line to be speaker, defeated by someone named Dave Brat, an economics professor at Randolph-Macon College just outside side of Richmond. And, tonight, CNN's best political mind are here to break it all down for us and tell us -- to tell us what it means to the Republican Party and what it says about midterms that are upcoming. Well, tonight, we want to know what you think as well. So, make sure you tweet us, be a part of this conversation at #AskDon. Use #AskDon. So let's get right to the breaking news, Eric Cantor's stunning defeat tonight in Virginia, the number two Republican in the House losing to Dave Brat. Joining me now is CNN's all-star political team. Dana Bash is our chief congressional correspondent. Mark Preston is CNN's political director, Brian Stelter, senior media correspondent and host of "Reliable Sources." And Gloria Borger is CNN's chief political analyst, and also Dana Bash. Everyone is here. Dana, oh, my gosh. Can you -- can we say holy you-know-what on television?</s>DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I asked that you before we went on. And you said no.</s>LEMON: You can.</s>BASH: So, I'm not going to say that. But I think our viewers get the point. I -- I -- you can see I'm speechless. It's not often that I'm speechless. And I am not alone in this town. The e-mails, tweets, texts from people at the highest levels, people close to Eric Cantor, people on the rank and file of the Republican Party, particularly in the House, completely shocked. Just to give you a sense of how little anybody expected this, Eric Cantor's own staff was very sure that they were going to be fine, saying that this is just a press story, that this is just ginned up by people who want to make the Tea Party still have a life. Well, guess what? They have a life, a big life. And all of those stories that we have all done through the primary season so far, talking about the fact that the Tea Party may be losing life because they haven't been able to beat an incumbent, that's over. It's a wrap for that, because they have gotten the biggest head that they could possibly get at this point. And that is the number two Republican in the House.</s>LEMON: And isn't -- isn't it the first rule of politics, especially when you're running, to never underestimate your opponent, Mark Preston? And before you answer that, let me just show you what some of the early polls show, that Cantor had this pretty much locked up. A poll within the Cantor camp that -- shared with "The Washington Post" had Cantor at 62 percent to 28 percent. How could that poll have been so wrong, Mark Preston?</s>MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: Well, it's interesting. I have been on the phone all night just talking to political operatives here in Washington and in Virginia. And really they are laying the blame not only at Eric Cantor, but at his political consultants. They feel like they have done him wrong. But, to your point, Eric Cantor wasn't tending to business back home. And as one operative just said to me a short time ago, it is very difficult to be in the leadership, at the same time representing your district. And I think that's kind of what we saw with Eric Cantor. He was trying to have it both ways. It was only just a couple years ago, Don, that Eric Cantor was seen as the voice, so to speak, for the Tea Party within the leadership. The past couple of years, he seemed to have been moderating his views a little bit. And as someone said to me tonight, you can't have it both ways. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Tonight, Eric Cantor died by the sword.</s>LEMON: Gloria Borger, I know you're raring to get in here, but first I want you to listen to what Eric Cantor had to say tonight after his loss, and then we will talk.</s>REP. ERIC CANTOR (R-VA), HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: 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 you for the things that we believe in, for the conservative cause, because those solutions of ours are the answer to the problems that so many people are facing today. Thank you all very, very much.</s>LEMON: Gloria, what's your reaction? What did he do wrong?</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, there are lots of things he did wrong, first, in talking to Republicans tonight, who say to me, to a person, that this is a repudiation of Eric Cantor personally, that he failed politics 101, which is to keep in touch with your district. They point out that Lindsey Graham in South Carolina won a primary tonight with 60 percent of the vote. And one Republican said to me -- I'm going to quote it here -- "Measuring the drapes is never a good strategy," which means that he was next in line to become speaker, was seen as very ambitious, somebody who spent a lot of time fund-raising for the Republican Party. And it's one of the perils of leadership, particularly since the Republican leadership is unpopular with the base of the Republican Party.</s>LEMON: Brian, conservative media, can the opponent, can Dave Brat thank them for this victory?</s>BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: I think that has something to do with it. It was under the radar. That's why so many reporters, so many analysts were shocked tonight. But Laura Ingraham, for example, to name one talk radio host, was very supportive of Brat, even held a rally for him in Virginia this time last week. The top of her Web site today said, "Vote Dave Brat today." Other radio hosts also supported him. Ann Coulter supported him. And I think they are going to be getting credit in the days to come. Tonight on FOX News, Megyn Kelly called Ingraham instrumental to this victory.</s>LEMON: Dana, did they underestimate the power of the supporters here?</s>BASH: I think they underestimated the power of the supporters, but maybe they overestimated the power of the kind of Republican that would go out and vote for Eric Cantor in a primary that people aren't used to being a part of in his district. Primaries aren't very common in his district. I know it sounds like we are getting into the weeds here, but weeds matter in grassroots politics, particularly on this huge story. And I talked -- I described a little bit perhaps how overconfident the Cantor people were. That clearly translated into what you got to do on Election Day, which is get your voters out. And they didn't -- clearly didn't do that enough. And that is absolutely critical. Another just anecdote I will tell you is that I'm told that the Chamber of Commerce, which is a big establishment group, so to speak, that has gone in to help a lot of incumbents across the country this year with a lot of money, put up ads and so forth, they went to the Cantor people not too long and said, do you need us? And they were waved off by the Cantor people. They simply didn't see this coming, like most people didn't.</s>LEMON: Arrogance?</s>BORGER: Well, that's because the Cantor people had $5 million and Brat had what, $200,000 or $300,000?</s>BASH: Three hundred thousand.</s>BORGER: Right. And I think one of the other mistakes they made is that they ran negative ads against someone that lots of people had never heard of.</s>LEMON: By putting his name in those negative ads, they made him popular.</s>BORGER: Until those ads appeared. And so there were issues. There were issues like immigration. There were issues like the government shutdown. Cantor was a member of the leadership who wanted to end the government shutdown, which was popular with the conservative base of the Republican Party. So there were issues, and then there was, you know, a little political malpractice perhaps going.</s>STELTER: Well, and that's one of the storylines tonight, about money. Usually, money wins races. A study came out in April said 91 percent of the time, the better-financed candidate wins. But then there is the other 9 percent.</s>LEMON: Mark Preston, what do we know about Brat and about the challenger he will face?</s>PRESTON: Well, here is the situation We don't know very much about him. I think at the top was the longest biography that you could give on a candidate we know nothing about, necessarily. He is a college professor. He is going to win in November. Democrats were hoping that Eric Cantor would run as a write-in candidate, would split the vote, and then they could potentially pick up the seat. That's not going to happen. This is a very Republican seat. But let's take a step back and look at really the national implications about this. We're talking about the majority of leader of the House of Representatives being taken out, which means there's going to be a void now in the House leadership, which means you have an emboldened Tea Party. Will we see a Tea Party candidate within the Republican Conference try to run? And what does that mean for any kind of cooperation moving forward in the final two years of President Obama's term? So there is lot of national implications. And, quite frankly, Don, we talk about the implications for Republicans and how they will pushed to the right. There are also Democrats that are running in the Senate in a lot of red states right now. They have got to be concerned that there is potentially a Tea Party base, a conservative base that will be energized by this, and they could potentially help defeat those Democrats.</s>LEMON: All right, everyone, hold on, hold on. When we come right back, the big position that may be behind Eric Cantor's stunning defeat. Is it all about immigration? Our political team goes toe to toe on that. And we want to know what you think about all of this. Make sure you tweet us using #AskDon.