June 6, 2012 | 12:17 pm

Political tidbits: Another Jew in the House

Posted by Shmuel Rosner

Randy Altschuler

‎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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