115th Congress - 20/22 Rep. & 8/8 Sen. are Jewish Dems, GOP so poor - Why?

[Mr. Morden]

The lopsided nature of this seems to be limited to elected positions.  In appointed positions, it’s more even.  E.g., the Bush administration had Michael Chertoff, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Elliott Abrams, Ari Fleischer, David Frum, Ken Mehlman, etc.

[Mr. Morden]

In any case, among elected officials, it's absolutely the case that Democratic Jews are overrepresented compared to Republican Jews, relative to their numbers among the broader electorate.

But there are many such cases like this.  E.g., back in 2008, when McCain picked Palin to be his running mate, I believe she was actually the only (under age 70) female sitting governor *or* Senator in the country who was pro-life on abortion.  There are plenty of pro-life women among the ranks of ordinary Republican voters, and yet (until recently) the Republican women being elected to major office were folks like Collins, Hutchison, Murkowski, and Snowe.

That's because there are cultural differences between the kinds of people who run for office and the people found among the general electorate.  It's possible that these kinds of splits on the Republican side may actually start to grow a bit now that the Trump era has given us this big education gap, with the Republican electorate being populated more by people without a college degree.....though it's hard to say.