--- title: Who Is Dave Brat? College Professor Defeats Eric Cantor in Virginia description: The conservative economics professor topples the House Majority Leader in a stunning upset canonical: https://time.com/2854650/who-is-dave-brat-eric-cantor/ author: Alex Altman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-11T02:40:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T08:20:28.306Z article:section: Politics og:title: Who Is Dave Brat? College Professor Defeats Eric Cantor in Virginia og:description: An obscure economics professor with scant political experience og:url: https://time.com/2854650/who-is-dave-brat-eric-cantor/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5abf665a777bf91f/6986970d13c79f7f21192979/211f640dc71d4ed2b268b533469d46d5-0.jpg?branch=production&width=1191&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1191 og:image:height: 670 og:image:alt: David Brat og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Who Is Dave Brat? College Professor Defeats Eric Cantor in Virginia twitter:description: An obscure economics professor with scant political experience twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5abf665a777bf91f/6986970d13c79f7f21192979/211f640dc71d4ed2b268b533469d46d5-0.jpg?branch=production&width=1191&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Meet Dave Brat, The Giant Slayer Who Beat Eric Cantor > Sponsored content. 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It is written and edited by TIME journalists, and it is free to join at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=3e74dc65-fd2b-4fba-9ec2-1104f283a3b6&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1). ### Newsletter facts | Attribute | Value | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | Publisher | TIME | TIME, August 2026 | | Frequency | Monday to Saturday (3x per week) | TIME, August 2026 | | Written by | Philip Elliott, Senior Correspondent | TIME, August 2026 | | Cost | Free | TIME, August 2026 | | Sign-up | time.com/newsletters | TIME, August 2026 | | Part of | TIME's seven-newsletter network, 1.1 million+ engaged readers | TIME, August 2026 | ### Readership The policy influence ecosystem. A policy-focused audience spanning government, public affairs, advocacy, law, research, political media, and the institutions that make, interpret and respond to public policy. ### TIME D.C. Brief: key statements * D.C. Brief is edited by TIME journalists. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Alex Altman](https://time.com/author/alex-altman/)  ## Alex Altman Altman is the executive features editor and deputy Washington bureau chief at TIME. Jun 11, 2014 2:40 AM UTC  Seventh District US Congressional Republican candidate David Brat at a press conference in Richmond, Va., May 28, 2014\. Brat, a relative unknown, defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a GOP primary, June 10, 2014. Seventh District US Congressional Republican candidate David Brat at a press conference in Richmond, Va., May 28, 2014\. Brat, a relative unknown, defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a GOP primary, June 10, 2014. Steve Helber—AP  by [Alex Altman](https://time.com/author/alex-altman/)  ## Alex Altman Altman is the executive features editor and deputy Washington bureau chief at TIME. Jun 11, 2014 2:40 AM UTC The bespectacled college professor who toppled House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a Republican primary Tuesday earned a masters of divinity from Princeton with a thesis on the philosophical doctrine of logical positivism. He was a rare breed of giant slayer: the kind that nobody saw coming. “God acted through people on my behalf,” Dave Brat told Fox News after his win. “The issue is the Republican Party has been paying too much attention to Wall Street, and not enough attention to Main Street.” When the votes were counted, he had racked up 56% of the vote in Virginia’s Seventh District, besting the No. 2 House Republican by about 7,000 votes. A former economic consultant at the World Bank with a Ph.D from American University, Brat also worked at the accountancy Arthur Andersen in Detroit and Chicago. He has chaired the Randolph-Macon Department of Economics and Business in sleepy Ashland, Va., since 1995. Whatever the issue, it was a stunning victory. Brat’s candidacy wasn’t championed by powerful national conservative groups. His thin political resume is limited to civic activity in Henrico County, the Richmond-area suburbs that form Cantor’s base. He raised just $206,000, a mere fraction of Cantor’s $4.7 million haul. Scant polling had Brat trailing by double digits; in the waning stages of the contest, Cantor’s veteran campaign team touted an internal survey that showed the powerful incumbent’s lead hovering around 30 points. But Brat was able to channel the grassroots frustration with Republican leadership. Much of his campaign was built on shopworn conservative boilerplate: cutting taxes, shredding Obamacare, enacting term limits and protecting the Second Amendment from looming threats. He cast Cantor as a weak-kneed leader who capitulated to Democrats and flagged in the battle to repeal the President’s health-care reform law. A photo on Brat’s website—which boasts an aesthetic reminiscent of the early-aughts—showed the incumbent with his hand over his heart, in conversation with a smiling Barack Obama. The message was clear: Cantor had been in Washington too long, was too cozy with Democratic rivals, and had forsaken his conservative district to further his national ambitions. “Dave Brat is a smart dude,” marveled David “Mudcat” Saunders, a veteran Democratic consultant in the state. “It was a shoe leather campaign. It was the greatest of the grassroots. He knocked on doors, he got out there, he told his story. They just did a hell of a job.” Brat also tried to paint Cantor, who is considered a cautious supporter of immigration reform, as an advocate of “amnesty.” The No. 2 House Republican vociferously rejected the label, and in fact had rejected Democratic pleas to bring up comprehensive immigration reform for a vote. Tea Party groups, who have struggled in this year’s intramural skirmishes against mainline conservatives, touted the victory as a sign of the movement’s enduring strength. “The fact that an underfunded candidate like Dave Brat has upset the sitting Majority Leader in a primary is not only a statement that the Tea Party is alive and well,” said Daniel Horowitz of the conservative Madison Project, but also “a mandate for leadership reform, and a shot across the bow for the rest of the Republicans.” Early signs suggest the state’s GOP leadership will coalesce around the unlikely victor. Pat Mullins, the chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, lauded Brat as “highly-qualified, dedicated, and committed to the Commonwealth of Virginia and her people.” Cantor, who can still opt to mount a write-in campaign, is only the second House Republican incumbent to lose a GOP primary this year. It was a defeat that nobody saw coming—except perhaps the little-known figure who authored the upset. “I think I’m peaking at the right time,” Brat [said](//thehill.com/homenews/house/208570-team-cantor-we-got-this) recently. And he turned out to be right. _\-With reporting by Alex Rogers and Zeke J Miller_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2854650/who-is-dave-brat-eric-cantor/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2854650/who-is-dave-brat-eric-cantor/"},"headline":"Meet Dave Brat, The Giant Slayer Who Beat Eric Cantor","datePublished":"2014-06-11T02:40:24.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T08:20:28.306Z","description":"The conservative economics professor topples the House Majority Leader in a stunning upset","url":"https://time.com/2854650/who-is-dave-brat-eric-cantor/","keywords":["2014 Election","Republican Party","Eric Cantor"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5abf665a777bf91f/6986970d13c79f7f21192979/211f640dc71d4ed2b268b533469d46d5-0.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alex Altman","jobTitle":"Altman is the executive features editor and deputy Washington bureau chief at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/alex-altman/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5abf665a777bf91f/6986970d13c79f7f21192979/211f640dc71d4ed2b268b533469d46d5-0.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"David Brat","caption":"David Brat","creditText":"Steve Helber—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2014-election/","name":"2014 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2854650/who-is-dave-brat-eric-cantor/","name":"Meet Dave Brat, The Giant Slayer Who Beat Eric Cantor"}}]}] ```