Cantor’s Voting Record

It was pretty damn conservative:

Using DW-NOMINATE Common Space scores (which measure the ideological positions of Members of Congress based on the entirety of their roll call voting records), we find that Cantor is more conservative than 61% of Republicans in the (current) 113th House and more conservative than 76% of Republicans in the 113th Senate. Though already a sound conservative in the current Congress, Rep. Cantor would have been among the most conservative Republicans (more conservative than 83% of Republicans) 20 years ago in the 104th House.

But Derek Willis adds that, as “a member of leadership, Mr. Cantor has had to take votes that angered conservatives”:

Since becoming leader in 2011, Mr. Cantor has overseen eight votes in which a bill passed without a majority of Republicans supporting it, angering some rank-and-file lawmakers.

Even so, there are few current House Republicans who have disagreed with Mr. Cantor on even one in five votes in the current Congress: The small group that did consists of the libertarian-leaning Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Justin Amash of Michigan, and the relatively moderate Chris Gibson of New York and Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, a wild card among the G.O.P. for his antiwar positions. The same was true in the 112th Congress.

Mr. Cantor’s voting record is also very similar to that of other top House Republicans, including Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Jeb Hensarling of Texas.