Cantor loss creates a disturbance in the force

Many of us have written about the civil war threatening to rend the Republican Party. Tonight, we may have seen that civil war’s battle of Bull Run, as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., fell to tea party challenger David Brat. And it was not a close race; Cantor was losing by 10 points.

The loss shouldn’t be understated: It’s rare for members of leadership to be challenged, let alone to lose those challenges. Yet we’ve seen challenges to leaders in the House, the U.S. Senate and in both state Senate and Assembly here in Nevada.

Whether Cantor’s loss portends a tea party or libertarian wave remains to be seen. But certainly the raw materials of an upset election are present. There are incumbents whom the base considers too liberal, or too willing to compromise. There are ideologically committed challengers. There’s a base of support for challengers in the Nevada Republican Party, which adopted new rules to allow pre-primary endorsements and then used those endorsements to back conservative challengers.

Every state, and race, is different, and there are always unique factors in every contest. But there are a bunch of political insurgents who are eagerly waiting for polls to close, and some very nervous incumbents tonight.