Thursday is Oct. 1. Republican caucus and primary voters begin voting the first of February. Jeb Bush has suffered a big decline in the polls, losing, by the count of Wall Street Journal pollsters, two-thirds of his support nationally since June. (He was at 22 percent in that month’s Journal poll and 7 percent in a new survey released Sunday.) Other polls show significant decline.
Donald Trump may be slipping, but he is still at the top of the GOP polls, with Ben Carson close, and both are ahead of Bush. Now Marco Rubio and Carly Fiorina are ahead of Bush, as well. The former Florida governor’s fundraisers are reportedly growing nervous at his lack of progress, hinting they may take their support to someone else if Bush doesn’t do better soon.
So what is Team Bush’s response? To project a sense of calm and imperturbability in the face of bad news. “The race is completely fluid — look at all the moving parts to date,” said close Bush aide Sally Bradshaw in an email exchange Sunday. “We don’t spend a lot of time worried about who is President of 2015.”
“The campaign is confident that a steady approach will yield results — that has been our plan from day one,” Bradshaw continued. “It has not changed. The more people learn about Jeb’s record as governor through our messaging, the more likely they will be to support the most committed conservative governor in the race — with a record of reform and results.”
Another aide at the highest level of the Bush campaign — Mike Murphy, who runs the Bush Right to Rise super PAC — also addressed the issue Sunday. When I tweeted, “WSJ poll: Jeb support 1/3 what it was in June. Then: 22%. Now: 7%,” Murphy responded: “Early national polls are totally meaningless.”
I followed up: “Serious, nonargumentative question: When does ‘early’ end? October is Thursday.” Murphy responded: “Mid December. IA and NH move late. #LastSixWeeks. Also, with proportional rules, March really counts. Long road…”
A short time later, Murphy added something that was nearly unintelligible to people who aren’t political consultants but revealed a critical part of the Bush campaign’s approach to the race. “Quiz: what does 1500 GRPs of TV cost in just the March 1 states?” Murphy asked. That was a reference to the cost of gross ratings points, a measurement of the size of television advertising buys, in the eight southern states that will hold the so-called “SEC Primary” on March 1. Murphy then added: “Answer: approx $26.5 million. Plus mail, digital, and more. Long road.”
The message was clear: For the Bush campaign, money is, if not the key to victory, something very close to it. Only Bush, they suggested, will have the cash to fight beyond the February contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.
Bradshaw made much the same point, without the jargon. “Jeb is the only candidate that will have the resources to competitively fight for delegates beyond the four early states,” she wrote. “Governor Bush will be aggressively fighting for delegates in March and beyond. And yes, we believe he will be the nominee.”
In an email follow-up, Bradshaw declared: “I am not concerned…Jeb’s support in the early states is steady — he’s the only one with a base of support that can be built upon over time. And that’s exactly what we expect to happen.”
Can the Bush plan work? Of course; the race is in fact as fluid as Bradshaw said. But there’s also the question of whether an ample supply of money — and it’s important to note there have been persistent rumors of money worries and overspending in the campaign — will overcome some of the Bush effort’s structural problems. If voters persist in their desire for an outsider candidate, or if they feel they just don’t want another Bush, or if they decide they simply like someone else better, it’s not clear that any amount of money will persuade them to change their minds. And if other candidates win Iowa and New Hampshire, Bush would face a task of historic difficulty trying to win the nomination — no matter how much money he has.
