Jeb Bush on Friday belatedly conceded what has been evident for months: He’s an underdog with foggy prospects.
Languishing in single digits for months — only good enough for middle of the pack in national and early primary state polls, the former two-term Florida governor and son and brother of the last two Republican presidents finally pulled the plug on a campaign strategy that was built for a front-runner who was steamrolling the competition. Bush described the shift as going “lean and mean and I have the ability to adapt.”
The move was remarkable for a contender who was immediately anointed the candidate to beat upon entering the 2016 sweepstakes last December and whose mere presence prompted political insiders to assume that others, particularly Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, would take a pass on the race for fear of being unable to mount a successful campaign. Now, the doubters are staring at Bush and questioning claims that his candidacy is salvageable.
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“There are very few examples of a campaign of that magnitude cutting back and ultimately regaining their footing,” said a veteran Republican strategist, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly.
It’s not unheard of for winning campaigns to make course corrections, some minor, some pointed.
In a detailed memorandum, the Bush campaign said it was re-orienting the national scope of its operation to a tighter focus on New Hampshire, host of the first traditional primary and second overall nominating contest of the primary season. That is where Bush is perceived to have his best chance of scoring a victory in one of the four, crucial early primary states. It also happens to be crowded with other party-establishment-aligned candidates who are prosecuting a similar strategy.
Drastic changes described by the memo include staff cutbacks and salary reductions, for a 40 percent trim in total payroll costs. Where 75 percent of the campaign’s staff was based in its Miami headquarters, only 25 percent of them will still be there when the reorganization is complete. Forty-five percent of all non-media, non-voter contact expenses are being slashed, including 20 percent of campaign travel costs. Bush put a positive spin on the move during a campaign appearance Friday in Virginia Beach, Va.
“Every dollar we can save in overhead is a dollar that goes on television, goes on radio, goes on media, goes on voter outreach,” Bush said, during a presidential forum hosted by Regent University. “People in our headquarters that do extraordinary work are going to be offered the chance to go to the beautiful states like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada, and the SEC primary states, and one ACC primary state, Virginia.”
Republican operatives familiar with some of the Bush campaign’s challenges told the Washington Examiner that the governor’s problems go deeper than middling poll numbers. On Friday, Bush ranked fifth in the RealClearPolitics average of national GOP primary polls, with 7.2 percent, and third in New Hampshire, at 9.3 percent.
To put it mildly, the political operation that began as a fundraising juggernaut — Bush raised more than $100 million during the first six months of the year for the entity that became his independent super PAC — has dried up. Bush raised just $13.4 million in the third quarter, his first full fundraising period as a presidential candidate, and had $10 million in the bank on Sept. 30. The numbers weren’t horrible relative to Bush’s Republican competition.
But they weren’t nearly enough to cover cash flow going forward for the large staff and other overhead costs the Bush campaign acquired with an eye toward becoming a shock-and-awe operation. Curiously, the campaign has decided to downsize its in-house fundraising staff and fire a majority of its national fundraising consultants as a part of its cost and restructuring, sources said.
“The finance structure was set up to build out more bundlers and thus make the cash continue to flow,” a Republican insider said. “Jeb’s lackluster campaign has made it difficult to recruit new high dollar donors. And with a near zero small donor base, for cash flow purposes they can’t sustain Team Tesla, a.k.a. very expensive overhead.”
Then there’s the matter of organization, also supposedly Bush’s strong suit. His team of experienced professionals has done a lot right. But some have complained that there was a rush to scoop up up the best talent and too little planning on how they fit into the campaign organization. Decision-making also was unwieldy at times, with senior Bush confidants not always on the same page.
It’s not all doom and gloom. The Bush campaign has invested heavily in permanent infrastructure and voter turnout apparatus, positioning the governor to compete in a primary that could become a fight for GOP nominating delegates well into April. And, a Republican operative raising money for the Bush campaign told the Examiner that he hasn’t encountered problems filling his events or meeting his money goals.
But campaigns that are raising the money they anticipated don’t take a machete to staff and expenses. And the danger for a front-running candidate who is forced to reinvent himself as an underdog is that it sends a message of weakness — to donors, grassroots supporters and voters — that can be difficult to arrest. The further risk is that Bush’s drastic shakeup, although necessary and the correct action to take, feeds a vicious cycle of negative press that make a comeback impossible.
“I’m not sure it’s death yet, but it’s starting to smell like it,” said a Republican operative who advised a 2012 candidate.
Ryan Lovelace reported from Virginia Beach, Va.
