SHOCK poll: Eric Cantor (R) in primary trouble !?

[StateBoiler]

Don't feel bad for Cantor. He may never be the first Jewish speaker of the House, but he's going to become insanely rich earlier in his career than anticipated.

Isn't he already insanely rich?

Anyway, have we heard who will replace him as majority leader?

That's the more important bit of this result in all honesty. He's not going to carry on as House Majority Leader as a lame duck, I doubt the party would let him anyway, but someone has to pick that up.

Was turnout low or high?

[StateBoiler]

He's not going to carry on as House Majority Leader as a lame duck, I doubt the party would let him anyway, but someone has to pick that up.

He's not?  I would have figured that he'll continue serving as Majority Leader until his term is up.  Otherwise, you have to reshuffle the entire leadership below Boehner, as everyone tries to move up to the next rung on the ladder.  Why have a distracting leadership battle like that right now?  It makes far more sense to hold off on that until November.

Unless Cantor has already made some kind of announcement to suggest that he'll step down as Majority Leader?

Anything he says and does, everyone can mock him for his primary loss and ignore what he says because he's not long for this world. The man's castrated if he attempts to retain his power.

[StateBoiler]

He's not going to carry on as House Majority Leader as a lame duck, I doubt the party would let him anyway, but someone has to pick that up.

He's not?  I would have figured that he'll continue serving as Majority Leader until his term is up.  Otherwise, you have to reshuffle the entire leadership below Boehner, as everyone tries to move up to the next rung on the ladder.  Why have a distracting leadership battle like that right now?  It makes far more sense to hold off on that until November.

Unless Cantor has already made some kind of announcement to suggest that he'll step down as Majority Leader?

Anything he says and does, everyone can mock him for his primary loss and ignore what he says because he's not long for this world. The man's castrated if he attempts to retain his power.

Well, I have yet to see any statement to the effect that he's planning to step down from leadership before his term is up, nor any indication that his colleagues are planning to force him out.  There is just no point in him relinquishing his post right now.  We only have a few months to go until Congress adjourns anyway.  Why create this gigantic leadership battle right now?  He'll stay on until November, when the party will elect new leadership, following the general election.

It's not gigantic, this is not some commonwealth country's parliamentary party leadership election. The Republican representatives of the House, more than 200 people, get together and vote for a House Majority Leader.

The point is that Cantor is a fallen king. Why would anyone take orders from a fallen king? The reason you took orders from him before no longer exists.

[StateBoiler]

I see this as a case of the tortoise and the hare.  The tortoise, Mitch McConnell, went back to his state, campaigned, brought home the pork-barrel, and did everything he could to reingratiate himself to Kentucky, a state where he was nonetheless widely despised, and pulled it off, winning his primary.  Eric Cantor, the hare, eager to get to the top of the House GOP food chain and becoming the Washington insider par excellence, ignored his district and his mosquito of a primary opponent and lost.

Take a page from Mitch McConnell: sometimes it pays to be the tortoise.

That's the take all the D.C. political press took this morning.