Defiant Bush still alive after N.H. primary

“This campaign is not dead,” Bush insisted Tuesday night. “We’re going on to South Carolina.” He remained in contention for third place as the returns rolled in and can point to protege Marco Rubio’s widely panned debate performance in arguing for patience.

Bush supporters weren’t necessarily exuberant, but the candidate received high marks for steadiness.

“I was undecided until this morning, but I went with Jeb Bush,” Sharon Little, 62, told the Washington Examiner. I went Jeb because when it gets right down to the politics, name-calling and everything else, I think he’d make a better leader.”

Bush began his campaign as the early front-runner, raising more than $100 million and scaring 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney from the race.

But Bush deterred few others from running and the field quickly grew to 17 well-known candidates. Since his early fundraising success, Bush has struggled in state and national polls. He finished sixth in the Iowa caucuses, behind Rand Paul, who has already dropped out.

New Hampshire has had a mixed history in the Bush family’s presidential bids. The Floridian’s father, George H.W. Bush, scored an upset victory Iowa during his first run for the White House in 1980, but was beaten in the Granite State by Ronald Reagan, the eventual nominee. Eight years later, the elder Bush came in third in Iowa but righted his campaign in New Hampshire, en route to winning the nomination and the presidency.

Jeb Bush’s older brother, George W. Bush, won Iowa in 2000 but lost to John McCain in an upset in the New Hampshire primary. The Texan managed to carry the Granite State in the closely contested general election that fall. Had he lost New Hampshire, Al Gore would have been elected president even without Florida’s electoral votes.

Jeb Bush had hoped to use the New Hampshire primary as a springboard to South Carolina, the longtime Republican establishment firewall. Now it could be his last stand.