Look to your right: Can you see the new J-Meter? I’m not going to dwell on it since you can read all about it in the About the J-Meter page – but I urge you to take a look and study these new Rosner’s Domain features, some of which you can’t find anywhere else. Two of the features you can follow on J-Meter are the House and the Senate Jewish projections, in which we will try to give you a better sense of the projected number of Jewish legislators following the next election. I made a habit of counting Jewish legislators quite a long time ago, and am still enjoying this little game of Jewish politics.
So where do we stand at the end of April 2012?
For the detailed analysis and all of the details, you’ll have to go to our J-Meter House Projection page (yes, you can click) and the Senate Projection page (click). If you only want only the bottom line, it is this:
No record will be reached this time. It was nice to cover, both in 2006 and in 2008, the two rounds of elections in which a record number of Jewish legislators were sent to Capitol Hill. In the 2010, when the Republican wave hit the House, the number of Jewish legislators went down, as I had been predicting many months in advance. In 2012 it is going to decline even more.
Note: Our count is far from final. The races all around the US are just starting to take shape, and in many places levels of uncertainty still make it hard to get a clear picture. However, we do have an initial projection to make, according to which the caucus of Jewish Congressman and Congresswomen is going to lose four members and include 23 legislators compared to the 27 elected in 2010.
In the Senate, where 13 Jews have been serving over the last two years, we also expect to lose some. Two Jewish senators are departing, and while we expect all Jewish senators who have races this year to retain their seats, we do not believe that the small number of new Jewish contenders will compensate for the departure of the two senators. Thus, we put our projection for April at 12 Jewish senators following the 2012 election (instead of 13 following the 2010 elections).
We invite you all to survey our projection. Please, send us your comments, correct our mistakes, tell us things we don’t yet know.
