Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Tea party candidate takes aim at Cantor in Va. race
Prof challenging GOP incumbent over immigration
RICHMOND, Va. — House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, oneof themost powerful Republicans in Washington, is under fire on the home front, where a tea party-backed challenger aims to stop him from running for an eighth term representing his Virginia district in Congress.
Dave Brat, an economics professor, has run against Cantor from the right, saying the incumbent has failed to advance conservative values on such hotbutton issues as immigration, the national debt and health care.
Tuesday’s Republican primary in central Virginia could give the conservative tea party wing a chance to come back from a string of high-profile primary losses and rebuild momentum ahead of November’s congressional elections.
“Eyes around the country will certainly be on the Cantor race as the next key measure of the tea party movement going forward,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a political analyst at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg.
Brat, who teaches at Randolph-Macon College in the district north of Richmond, has challenged Cantor over immigration.
“Eric Cantor is saying we should bring more folks into the country, increase the labor supply — and by doing so, lower wage rates for the working person,” Brat said. “His policies make no sense.”
But in a recent campaign mailer, Cantor boasted of killing legislation that offered amnesty to “illegal aliens.”
Brat supporters booed Cantor last month at a local Republican meeting where both appeared, with the challenger criticizing the incumbent for refusing to meet for a debate. Cantor retorted angrily. “It is easy to sit in the rarefied environs of academia, in the ivory towers of a college campus with no accountability and no consequence, when you are throwing stones at those of us who are working every day to make a difference,” he said.
Supporters of Brat say they have soured on Cantor.
“We are sick and tired of Republicans who campaign on conservative principles and betray us when they get elected,” Laurence Nordvig, executive director of the Richmond Tea Party, said during a recent Brat fundraiser.
Despite that ire, experts said the odds are still with Cantor, who won 80 percent of the vote in his 2012 primary.
Farnsworth said he was unaware of any polling data on potential voters ahead of Tuesday’s primary.
Cantor holds a commanding edge on the money front.
In the fundraising period from April 1 to May 21, the incumbent raised $449,000 in the pre-primary period and reported $1.5 million in cash on hand.
Meanwhile, Brat raised $117,000 and reported nearly $84,000 in the bank.