How bad is Jeb Bush’s Bush problem? A new Quinnipiac poll suggests it is very bad.
The national survey shows Bush running well behind Donald Trump and Ben Carson, tied for third place in the GOP race with Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. But that is not the most serious problem for Bush in the poll.
Quinnipiac pollsters asked respondents a simple, open-ended question: “What is the first word that comes to mind when you think of Jeb Bush?” Quinnipiac published a table of all the responses given five or more times. Here is the list of the top eight responses for Jeb, including the number of times people mentioned each particular word:
Bush — 136
family — 70
honest — 53
weak — 45
brother — 41
dynasty — 40
experience — 35
George — 28
By far, the first word that the most people thought of about Jeb Bush was not a word at all, but rather his last name. What’s the first thing you think of when you think about Jeb? Bush. And then the next most common response was “family.” And then “brother” and “dynasty” and “George.” When people see Jeb, they don’t think, this is an attractive candidate for president. They think “Bush.”
How many times has Jeb said, “I’m my own man”? So far at least, the message hasn’t gotten through.
