Rep. Eric Cantor ’s vote-counting prowess, fundraising talents and aggressive debating skills have enabled him to rapidly rise through the ranks of House Republicans in four terms to become the chamber’s minority whip for the 111th Congress.

Youthful, articulate and relentlessly on message, the Virginia Republican is considered an appealing fresh face for his party. As the chief deputy whip since 2002, he has not only helped Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri count votes but also has played the role of mediator between the leadership and sometimes-restive conservatives.

Cantor is trying to rebuild the GOP’s image and reconnect the party with business groups, having avoided the taint of scandals and defeat that plagued his colleagues in the 2006 elections. He says Republicans must return to their free-market, limited-government roots to find solutions to problems facing middle-class voters. His inspiration has been the story of his paternal grandmother, who owned a grocery store in downtown Richmond. “It was that spirit of entrepreneurialism, that can-do spirit, that really, there were no bounds,” he said.

Using his connections to the financial and real estate sectors, Cantor is one of the GOP’s most prolific fundraisers. Through mid-2008, he had raised more than $3 million during the election cycle, a level reached by just four other House Republicans other than presidential candidate Ron Paul of Texas. He raised another $2.1 million through his political action committee and serves as finance chairman for the House Republicans’ campaign arm. He also pledged to raise $10 million on behalf of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain , as part of an outreach campaign to Jewish donors. McCain considered selecting him as his running mate for the 2008 presidential campaign.

Blunt in 2002 chose Cantor over several more senior members of former Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s operation to be his chief lieutenant — a position that is often a launching pad for higher elected leadership posts. Cantor had been favored to get the whip’s job if Blunt defeated John A. Boehner of Ohio for the leader’s job in 2006. But he has cultivated Boehner’s attention, too. Boehner made Cantor one of his closest allies, and a link to conservatives who might otherwise try to topple the leader, during the 110th Congress (2007-08).

And even though Blunt retained the whip’s title after the 2006 showdown for the leader’s job, Cantor took over many of Blunt’s duties. Cantor keeps tabs on how Republicans plan to vote on a given issue, working to resolve the problems of those who don’t want to side with the leadership and convincing others it’s in their best interest to toe the line. That posture became largely defensive when Republicans went into the minority, but Cantor still counted some successes, including preventing an override of President Bush’s veto of a children’s health insurance bill, which he called a “defining vote” for Republicans, and preventing changes in Iraq policy. But he was unable to help the leadership prevent a Medicare bill — that blocked big cuts in Medicare payments to physicians and reduced payments to private Medicare plans — and a rewrite of the 2002 farm bill from becoming law over their objections.

Cantor’s own legislative focus tends to be on tax issues handled by the Ways and Means Committee, on which he serves. In the 111th Congress (2009-10), when the House is expected to consider extending the Bush tax cuts and consider broad health-care legislation, Cantor will benefit from Republican departures on the panel, moving up to the seventh-ranked spot and away from what he calls the “kiddie row” on the dais.

He favors lower corporate tax rates and sought business-friendly provisions in the economic stimulus package Congress enacted in 2008. In the 110th, he led the successful 2007 fight against Democratic attempts to tax private equity managers’ profit-sharing earnings as ordinary income instead of capital gains. Cantor assembled a coalition of real estate and business interests from across the country to lobby wavering members.

In the 108th Congress (2003-04), Cantor worked to ensure House passage of a corporate tax cut by helping affix tobacco buyout legislation to the package. Tobacco policy is important to Cantor’s district, because Richmond-based Philip Morris USA is a major employer. That can lead to the occasional odd-seeming vote. In 2008, Cantor bucked most House Republicans, Boehner and the White House to support a bill that would authorize the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco.

As the sole Jewish Republican in the House, Cantor is a natural nexus between the party’s Christian conservatives and traditionally Democratic Jewish campaign donors they court with their stance on Israel. Cantor ranks among the top beneficiaries of pro-Israel campaign dollars and is a spokesman for the party on Israel. He made trips to Jewish communities to talk up McCain in 2008, trying to eat into Democrats’ traditional lead among Jewish voters by painting Illinois Sen. Barack Obama , the Democratic presidential nominee, as untested on Israel issues.

The low point for Cantor over the past few years was getting wrapped up in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal. Cantor was among the leaders who in 2003 signed a letter that helped an American Indian tribe represented by lobbyist Abramoff. That year, Cantor also held a fundraiser at an Abramoff-owned restaurant, and Abramoff named a sandwich after him. Cantor received $12,000 in campaign donations through him, though Cantor claimed to know the lobbyist on only a “casual” basis. He later gave $10,000 of the money to a Richmond-area charity.

Cantor grew up in a well-to-do, politically active Richmond family. His father, Eddie, was on the board of the Virginia Housing Development Authority, and his mother, Mary Lee, was a board member of the Family and Children’s Trust Fund and the Science Museum of Virginia.

While in college, Cantor interned for Rep. Thomas J. Bliley Jr. of Virginia, driving the lawmaker’s 1982 campaign car around the district he would one day represent. He also worked as an aide to Walter A. Stosch, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.