Five percenters

There was another primary election that made headlines this week. Rep. Eric Cantor, the majority leader in the House, was upset by some guy named Brat. This was newsworthy because it was one of the few big scores by tea party candidates in this primary season.

I came across an analysis in the Washington Post, and was interested to see that what happened to Eric Cantor was remarkably similar to what happened to Dewhurst in his primary contest against Danny (Goeb) Patrick.

The population of Virginia's 7th congressional district is 738,355, of whom 543,429 are voting age. There are 474,714 registered voters (about 87 percent of voting-aged), and an estimated 270,000 of those are Republicans, based on the results in the 2012 presidential election.

The turnout for the primary was 65,022 and Brat won with 36,110 votes. In perspective, Brat won the votes of

• About 13.4 percent of the estimated Republican voters in the district
• About 7.6 percent of the registered voters in the district
• About 4.9 percent of the district's total population

Exactly how consequential Cantor's loss was in the overall scheme of things remains to be seen, although teabaggers see it as a victory of epic proportions and earth-shaking importance. For Democrats, it should underline the importance of getting out the vote.