1.
With another primary day over, body count can begin: Sherman in, Berman in, Rothman out, Wilmer out, Lowenthal in, Schiff in. Our House Jewish Projection page has been updated. We’ve also changed our overall projection from -4 to -3. It might be a little bit on the optimistic side, but we’ll stick with it for the time being. This means that next year we will have 24 Jewish members in the House. Go see the detailed math on the House page.
2.
The JTA did a story the other day on the NY-01 race on which we’ve written quite a lot lately. The story says what we’ve been saying: Republican Jews hope Randy Altschuler is going to join Eric Cantor as the second Republican Jew in the House. But the story also contained the following paragraph:
Altschuler is one of several Jewish Republicans drawing attention from RJC supporters. Others include Adam Hasner, competing for a House seat in the Florida delegation.
Note this: Altschuler was added to our Projection not long ago, Hasner was there all along. NY-01 is ranked “lean Democratic” by the Cook Report, Florida 22 is a “toss up”. Is it possible that following the November elections Republicans will have the unprecedented number of three Jewish representatives serving in the House?
3.
I’m not yet amending my projection for the percentage of Jewish votes Obama and Romney will be getting in November (see the analysis here). However, the recent Workmen’s Circle survey, that is giving Obama 58% of the Jewish vote and Romney 27% with 15% “unsure” is an interesting addition to the mix. The big question of course will be the breakout of the undecided voters – if they split the same way as “decided” voters (that’s what the analysts of TWC believe), Obama would be at 68%. That’s still pretty low for the President, and not bad for Romney. But I’d like to see more such polls before I believe this one.
4.
The Workmen’s Circle survey also has a section on Jewish Party identification – a trend that we’ve been tracking on the J-Meter for the last couple of months. All in all, TWC numbers fit in nicely with previous polls. The new poll does not force Independents into a “leaning” column, so all we can do with it is update the graph that includes the three columns: Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Take a look at the graph.
* AJC Annual Survey of Jewish Opinion
** Gallup
*** Jewish Distinctiveness in America, 2004
***** Workmen’s Circle
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