Eric Cantor and the Jewish Problem

 House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s surprising loss in the primaries is major national news – not the stuff of petty Jewish-world chatter. Then again, Cantor is currently the most senior Jewish representative in Congress, and he is also the only Jewish Republican representative in Congress. Thus, if you even remotely care about Jewish congressional representation, the Cantor defeat has meaning beyond the obvious ramifications discussed in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal articles.

The Cantor result forces us to change our House Jewish Projection. We now expect no more than 20 Jewish House Members to have a seat in the 2015-2016 term. This will be a twenty-year low for Jewish representation in Congress (our Senate Projection doesn't make things much better). And if up until yesterday we believed that the new situation is going to be the result of Democratic weakness – we have proved in the past that fluctuations in Jewish representation are tied to Democratic rise and decline – it is now the case that Jewish Republican representation, as low as it was to begin with, is also continuing its decline. There haven’t been any Republican Jewish senators for quite some time now. And unless a new Republican candidate emerges as a victor in Arizona or in New York (for details, look at the projection), there will be no Jewish Republicans in the House as well.