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Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the Republican Congressman from Virginia who serves as the House Majority Leader, was defeated in a primary election last night to a Tea Party conservative in what many are calling a major upset.

At around 8 p.m last night, word came in that Cantor had lost the primary election by about 11 percentage points to economist Dave Brat, who teaches at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va.. Just how bad of a loss was it? Cantor’s defeat, the Post reports, is one with “few parallels in American history,” and that “historians said that no House leader of Cantor’s rank had ever been defeated in a primary.”

Cantor’s loss last night was so severe that it’s since sent the GOP—already a divided party of sorts—into a frenzy trying to figure out what happened and what this means for the party’s future. “This is an earthquake,” former Congressman Vin Weber (R-Minn.) told the Post. “No one thought he’d lose.”

Now that Cantor—who was rumored to take over for House Speaker John Boehner when he retired—is out, the Republican party is scrambling to figure out their next move. With his successor out, it’s probably likely that Boehner isn’t going anywhere for a while. Meanwhile, now that Brat has the Republican nomination, he’ll face Democratic nominee Jack Trammell in the general election. Cantor still has a chance to win back his seat, though: running as a write-in candidate.

“It’s disappointing, sure,” Cantor said in his concession speech, “but I believe in this country. I believe there’s opportunity around the next corner for all of us.”