First House GOP primaries will test anti-incumbent mood

First House GOP primaries will test anti-incumbent mood

Brat was an underfunded, obscure college professor who shocked the political world in 2014 by ousting House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in what was supposed to be a no-contest Republican primary in Virginia.

Next month, GOP House members in a crescent curving from Texas to Illinois face the first congressional primaries in this incumbent-bashing, anti-establishment season of billionaire Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, the leading Republican presidential contenders.

"The frustration and anger that's out there would indicate that this is the year you get beat from the right," said Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., like Brat a member of the rebellious House Freedom Caucus that last year helped push House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to resign from Congress.

Club commercials also back conservative Warren Davidson's bid for Boehner's vacant seat in western Ohio, which if successful would be a symbolic coup.

Wally Wilkerson Jr., longtime Republican Party chairman in Montgomery County, the district's largest, cites a "very unusual" political climate with lots of unhappy voters.