Jeb Bush’s campaign has long emphasized the importance of the 12 primary contests on March 1—nicknamed the “SEC primary” because several states have schools in the NCAA’s Southeastern Conference. Bush has even campaigned at SEC football games, calling the appearances “SEC Tailgating with Jeb.” After stumping at tailgates earlier this football season in Georgia and Tennessee (both states have March 1 primaries), he was set to attend the week’s biggest SEC showdown between the LSU Tigers and the Alabama Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (another March 1 state).
Last week, however, the campaign canceled the tailgate appearance, saying Bush was “redirecting” his efforts. The campaign said the former governor was in Miami Saturday, and a spokesman says the event “no longer made sense on the schedule” because of “logistical concerns.” But the missed tailgate isn’t the only whiff the Bush campaign has made in Alabama in recent days. With less than four months to go before the state’s primary, the Bush campaign has declared, committed delegates for just 29 of 47 available spots—a sign the former Florida governor may be lagging in organization and enthusiasm in the Yellowhammer State.
Even with an incomplete slate, Bush can still fully compete for all of Alabama’s delegates to the Republican National Convention. According to the Alabama GOP’s rules, candidates running in the March 1 primary competing for 47 declared delegates, 3 for each of the state’s 7 congressional districts and an additional 26 “at-large” delegates. The registration deadline for prospective delegates was November 6, but even if Bush performs well enough in the primary to earn more than 29 delegates he currently has spots for, the state party will find enough delegates to make up the difference.
That won’t be an issue for the four presidential candidates who have at least one pledged delegate for each of the 47 spots: Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump. In fact, all 4 of those candidates have more committed delegates than the 47 spots available. One other candidate, Rand Paul has 45 out of 47 committed delegates. Bush, however, has 32 delegates running for just 29 spots, with several of the at-large spots and a few congressional district spots unfilled as of the Friday deadline.
If the state party can make up the difference, why do declared delegates matter, and why did the Carson, Rubio, Cruz, and Trump campaigns even bother filling their slots? For one, more declared delegates means more on-the-ground activists touting your candidacy. For another, it can be a good indicator—to donors, to rival candidates, and to the media—of the organizational strength of a campaign. When Bush secured a full slate of Tennessee’s delegates in October, for example, the campaign touted this on their own website.
“Organizing a presidential campaign in Tennessee is tougher than in some other places, and this shows enthusiasm and momentum for Jeb Bush in one of the important ‘SEC primary’ states,” said Bush advisor Tom Ingram in the campaign’s blog post. “This campaign is systematically organizing across the country, doing the hard work required to get on ballots and ultimately put together an organization that can win a primary and deliver the White House. This is the latest example of a campaign that is pulling the right levers in ground-level organizing.”
Bush’s certainly isn’t the only campaign to underperform with declared delegates in Alabama. John Kasich and Rick Santorum both have delegates for 19 spots, Carly Fiorina for 16 spots, Mike Huckabee for 7 spots. The rest of the candidates have no committed delegates in Alabama.
Still, it’s the Bush campaign’s effort to appear dominant in the SEC primary states that makes their lack of a full slate stick out. Bush has courted GOP donors and bigwigs in Atlanta, Houston, and Tennessee, and he has a network of support in Texas, where his last name still has weight and where his son, George P. Bush, is a statewide elected official. The Bush campaign has touted its organizational efforts in other SEC primary states like Tennessee, and the super PAC supporting Bush, Right to Rise, plans to air TV ads in Georgia ahead of March 1. But the empty slots in Alabama suggest the Bush campaign is not as organized in the South as it wants to project.
