The rural angle in Eric Cantor's loss? (and David Brat's win)

From Gail Collins' column in today's New York Times:

The website for Brat’s candidacy noted that he served on Virginia’s Joint Advisory Board of Economists under two governors and claimed that everyone in the state comes to him for budgetary insight “knowing that he tested his rural values against the intellectual elite while at Princeton.” Actually, he went to Princeton Theological Seminary, which is an entirely different place. But at the moment, people are more fascinated by the fact that his entire election budget was $200,000, which is only slightly more than what Cantor’s campaign spent on steak dinners.

David Brat is, of course, the economics professor at Randolph-Macon College, just north of Richmond, Virginia, who on Tuesday defeated house majority leader Eric Cantor in the Republican primary for Virginia's 7th District.

I wonder what "rural values" Brat refers to.  Would be nice to have some specifics here.

Meanwhile, the New York Times describes Brat's new opponent, a fellow Randolph-Macon professor who is the Democratic Party candidate for the 7th District, in a way that also nods to the rural:

Jack Trammell is an associate professor of sociology, a romance novelist, a descendant of Appalachian farmers and the father of seven children in what he calls a blended family.

Apparently part of this description comes from the candidate's website.  Randolph-Macon College is in Ashland, Virginia, population 7,225, and the only incorporated town in Hanover County, population 99,863. It is part of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area, and is just 15 miles north of Richmond on I-95.