House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s campaign spent more money on food — $168,000 on steakhouses alone — than Dave Brat did on his entire campaign. But it wasn’t just steak. On April 6, the Cantor campaign spent $790 at Proof, a downtown D.C. restaurant, where the cheapest entree on the menu is a “Napoleon of Crispy Tofu, Wild Mushrooms & Spring Vegetables,” which costs $25. Brat’s biggest food expense was $789 for catering from Honey Baked Ham in Richmond (where boxed lunches go for $8.29 apiece) on May 8.

Cantor has been widely admired — inside the Beltway — for his successful fundraising operation and his largesse in donating to other candidates, especially from his leadership PAC, Every Republican Is Crucial (ERIC PAC). But last night, Cantor’s brand turned from ERIC to epic — as in, failure of historic proportions. Since 2000, there have been 30 instances of incumbents losing to primary challengers, but there is no comparison in terms of the chasm in spending between the winner and loser. According to an OpenSecrets.org analysis, Cantor spent more than Brat by a ratio of almost 41-to-1, a margin that is close to ten times wider than the spending spread between contestants in any other race on the list of 30.

Brat’s rhetoric railed against big-money Washington, decrying lobbyists and Wall Street types who funnel cash to leaders in both parties. And despite his severe financial disadvantage, it’s apparent that he managed to tap into a public anger that isn’t much affected by campaign ads or sophisticated strategizing.

A look at each campaign’s spending in late March helps tell the tale. On March 25, Cantor wrote checks for $8,900 for private jet services, $6,700 for food for a fundraising event (the Washington, D.C. catering company’s website is currently touting its “Star Spangled & Sumptuous” menu, featuring chilled roasted salmon with cucumber banchan) and $1,017 for legal consulting from McGuire Woods. Brat’s campaign had no expenses on March 25, but the day before, it spent $87 at WalMart on “office supplies.”

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While Cantor’s campaign was once admired in Washington for its high-flying ways and is now being mocked for its lavish food expenses, Brat’s campaign spending was so minimal that it’s hard to detect a pattern. His largest vendor was a payroll firm ($29,700), followed by Concentric Direct ($25,300), a small political consulting firm that, according to its website, had previously overseen Mitt Romney’s primary win in Wyoming and also had success in Cleveland city council races.

One of the more seasoned political operatives working for Brat was his direct mail consultant, Dennis Fusaro, a longtime Virginia conservative activist who recently blew the whistle on what he said were illegal campaign activities at the National Right To Work Committee. Fusaro was paid $500 by Brat’s campaign; he told OpenSecrets Blog that he and a handful of others ran a shoestring operation, mailing out 40,000 introduction letters. Fusaro added that he helped coordinate another 12,000 phone calls to gun owners. According to Brat’s filings, about $21,000 was spent printing mailers and making robocalls.

Similarly, it was already widely known that Cantor’s biggest donor was Wall Street. And though his fundraising numbers — $5.4 million so far in this election cycle — had been the envy of congressional colleagues, they are now the symbol of how out-of-touch he was. Conversely, it’s almost impossible to profile Brat’s typical donor, because he had so few.

Other gleanings from the campaigns’ reports:

Brat raised $206,000 through May 21, and at least an additional $16,600 after that, while Cantor raised $5.1 million, and another $298,000 just since May 21.

The majority leader brought in $2.1 million from PACs. Not a single PAC gave to Brat’s effort.

Cantor had hundreds of donors who maxed out their donations to him — $2,600 for the primary race — while Brat had 12 donors who gave the maximum amount, one of whom is a family member.

Cantor received just 21 percent of his campaign cash from Virginia residents, according to OpenSecrets’ latest analysis, which covers large individual donations (over $200) from 2013. Brat didn’t even raise money in 2013, but in 2014, 81 percent of the money from his large individual donors came from Virginia residents.

Cantor raised at least as much from donors living in D.C. ($193,000 in 2013 alone) as Brat raised overall. The challenger received just $50 from the District.



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