Former Majority Leader of the House Eric Cantor, R-Va., will formally endorse Jeb Bush for president tonight at a fundraiser in the capital city of Richmond, and will attend a town hall with the former governor Friday in Norfolk, Va.
Cantor will also serve as a co-chair of Jeb Bush’s campaign in the state.
After rising swiftly up the Congressional leadership ladder, Cantor stunningly lost his seat in Congress in June 2014 to primary challenger and Tea Party favorite Dave Brat, but is still highly respected within the party’s establishment, and is considered to have one of the biggest rolodexes in Washington. The endorsement comes as Bush trails Donald Trump in the polls.
Cantor, seems to have been weighing his endorsement and considering Bush for some time. In a March interview with National Review, Cantor indicated that he had spoken to the four candidates he thought most likely to secure the nomination: Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Chris Christie and Bush.
Cantor’s high profile status and long tenure serving the battleground state of Virginia made him the object of recruiting efforts of many campaigns.
He is considered well respected on military and national defense issues within the party, as well as being a mainline to the party’s outreach to and fundraising efforts with the Jewish community. At the time of his defeat in 2014, Cantor was the only Jewish Republican in Congress.
