WASHINGTON (JTA) — Elaine Luria, a Jewish Navy veteran running for Congress in a Virginia coastal district, and Max Rose, a Jewish Army veteran challenging for a House seat in New York’s Staten Island, each unseated Republican incumbents on Tuesday.
Luria was projected to win while holding a lead of 4,000 votes over Republican Scott Taylor in a district that includes the Norfolk U.S. Navy base. Luria, a former Navy commander, was the first woman to spend her entire Navy career aboard combat ships.
Rose, who was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his service in Afghanistan, unseated Dan Donovan in New York’s 11th District. He campaigned as a Democrat who is ready to defy his party leadership.
Rose and Luria were among six Jewish veterans running for the U.S. House of Representatives.
Another Democrat who turned a House district from Republican was Chrissy Houlahan, an Air Force veteran whose father is a Holocaust survivor, in Pennsylvania’s 6th comprising the Philadelphia suburbs. Houlahan said her father’s story — he became a U.S. Navy officer — inspired her to run. She does not consider herself Jewish.
