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As someone who was somewhat involved with the Brat race including placing robocalls against Cantor, the real reason Cantor lost was due to the grassroots organization that supported Brat. There were some local Tea Party folks, but there was no national help except primarily from Laura Ingraham. The battle was won in Hanover County by some very real patriots who were unhappy with Cantor for a number of reasons, including immigration and Cantor's support of the ENLIST Act and his promised "Kid's Act," which was his version of Obama's backdoor Dreamer amnesty.

Cantor did not have townhall meetings. A few years ago when we had a statewide Tea Party convention in Richmond, Cantor was one of the few politicians who did not show up. He is arrogant and aloof. No doubt, he screwed up tactically because he underestimated the challenge and had no inkling that there was growing discontent among his constituents. Cantor was overconfident and very vulnerable. Dave Brat was the first credible candidate to challenge him.

Cantor's tone deaf statement a few days before the election on the massive surge of "children" coming across the border put the nail in his coffin. His reaction that the GOP could work together with Obama on specific immigration issues was the last straw.

Cantor is an example of a politician who had become so disconnected with his constituents that he thought he could do anything he wanted without political consequence. And to make matters worse, he was challenged by a bright, articulate candidate who despite being outspent 22 to 1 was able thru grassroots volunteers to mobilize the votes to win.

On the issue of immigration, Dave Brat has provided the GOP with the template on how to make immigration a winning issue. Brat is the first one to link immigration, legal and illegal, with unemployment and declining wages. He just used commonsense that if you have a surplus of labor, it makes no sense to continue to bring in more labor, which increases unemployment and depresses wages. As an economics professor, he could easily make the case.

Brat went after the Chamber of Commerce and the corporate lobby. He was putting into practice what Jeff Sessions has been advocating, i.e., Becoming the party of work

When Americans went to the polls in 2012, the following was true: Work-force participation had sunk to its lowest level in 35 years, wages had fallen below 1999 levels, and 47 million Americans were on food stamps. Yet Mitt Romney, the challenger to the incumbent president, lost lower- and middle-income voters by an astonishing margin. Among voters earning $30,000 to $50,000, he trailed by 15 points, and among voters earning under $30,000 he trailed by 28 points.

And what did the GOP’s brilliant consultant class conclude from this resounding defeat? They declared that the GOP must embrace amnesty. The Republican National Committee dutifully issued a report calling for a “comprehensive immigration reform” that would inevitably increase the flow of low-skilled immigration, reducing the wages and living standards of the very voters whose trust the GOP had lost.

Over the past four decades, as factories were shuttered and blue-collar jobs were outsourced or automated, net immigration quadrupled. Yet the corporate-consultant class has pronounced that an insufficient level of immigration is the problem. A more colossal misreading of the political moment has rarely occurred.