Voters in Virginia last week ousted Eric Cantor as their congressional representative, but their votes did much more.
They knocked him from his role as House majority leader, stunning the political world and most likely stalling any attempt by other Republicans to address immigration reform.
At least that's the early reaction voiced from Capitol Hill.
Cantor, who had been expected to be the next speaker of the House, has served Virginia's 7th Congressional District since 2001 and been majority leader since 2011.
But he will soon resign his leadership post and serve out the remainder of his term in a Republican-led House of Representatives that has been set on its political ear.
The universal question for others in Congress is, if this could happen to well-funded, powerful Eric Cantor, could it happen to me?
David Brat, an economics professor and tea party supporter, pulled off the upset. He reportedly hammered Cantor primarily for his willingness to work on immigration reform.
Cantor was also accused of concentrating too much on national matters and not tending to the people in his House district.
That's not an uncommon challenge to those in leadership roles. The counter-argument is usually that the power arising from those roles can be beneficial to a district. Whatever deals get cut within the leadership generally take care of the leaders' constituencies.
Nevertheless, a majority of Republican primary voters in Cantor's Virginia district were convinced they will be better served by novice Brat than by Cantor, who was described as arrogant, smug and overconfident, so much so as to be in Washington, not his district on primary election day.
Clearly, there was more to this than just his stance on immigration or his conservative credentials. Still, preliminary analysis suggests that other congressional Republicans, especially in the House, may back further away from immigration reform, fearing they, too, could be taken down in their primaries by more conservative candidates who will toe a harder line.
As one of Cantor's colleagues put it, the message to House Republicans is "negotiation or compromise could get you beat."
In Arkansas, the primaries are over. Campaigns have shifted to general election strategies. But there are plenty of primary elections yet to be held and a lot will involve congressional district races.
Virginia was one of five states holding primaries last week as Arkansas also conducted its primary runoff. Another half dozen states will hold primaries or runoffs on June 24 with at least two dozen more primary elections to come in July, August and as late as September.
For the record, another factor in this outcome apparently related to the 12 percent turnout in that Virginia district. Maybe Cantor's supporters thought he couldn't be beat and didn't bother, but Brat's backers obviously cared enough to show up to vote.
Whatever worked for Brat, tea party challengers elsewhere in the country must surely be emboldened that they, too, can be David to another incumbent's Goliath.
And any incumbent with a primary challenger, certainly the increasingly scarce moderate Republicans, must be rethinking election strategy in light of Cantor's loss.
What they do now to cater to their party's far-right primary voters will, however, hurt them in the general election when the electorate will be more diverse.
That's the conundrum not only for individual congressional candidates but also for the Republican Party as it looks toward 2016 and the presidential election.
Again, post-election analysis of Cantor's loss is just beginning to move past the rhetoric that colored the Virginia primary. Later, Cantor may be given more credit for losing the election than Brat for winning it, whatever his issues were.
But, for now, the focus is on the impact this outcome will have on immigration reform and the weapon it could present to Democratic candidates.
Reform efforts are apparently dead, at least until the mid-term elections are over.
So, what happens to the voters who favor reform, particularly Hispanic and Asian voters like those who helped elect Barack Obama president?
The expectation is they'll again rally to Democratic candidates, particularly in their choice for president in 2016, if Republicans do try to out-conservative each other on immigration and other issues.
BRENDA BLAGG IS A FREELANCE COLUMNIST AND LONGTIME JOURNALIST IN NORTHWEST ARKANSAS.
Commentary on 06/15/2014