Believe It or Not: In Florida Jeb Bush is Running Third
Florida's former Republican governor Jeb Bush has raised a gargantuan sum of money, which outside groups started to collect for him before he even officially announced. These funds, coupled with Bush's name recognition, made the candidate a supposedly unstoppable juggernaut.
But it hasn't played out that way. Bush is lagging badly in polls all over the country, and a poll in the state he governed for years seems to show the depths to which his popularity has plunged.
Opinion Savvy released a poll showing that Bush is running third in Florida, of all places, behind both Donald Trump and Ben Carson:
- Bush: 18.6 percent
- Carson: 24.5 percent
- Trump: 28.9 percent
Perhaps most tellingly, Bush is polling at a flat zero percent among voters in the 18-29 age bracket. His strongest age group is voters 65 and above. It appears that Bush is completely out of touch with the new generation of GOP voters.
This is a trend we see all over the nation. In Iowa, the Real Clear Politics average of the most recent polls show Bush at 6.3 percent, running sixth (Trump is at 25.8 percent). In New Hampshire, Bush does better, polling third, but is still at 9 percent (Trump is at 28.3 percent, Kasich is at 12.7 percent).
In the Huffington Post's averaging of national polls, Bush is sitting at 8.3 percent, barely edging out Ted Cruz and being trounced by Trump's 32.1 percent.
Perhaps that's why his campaign just announced a massive half-million-dollar ad buy in New Hampshire, an attempt to boost popularity that is waning all over the country. It wouldn't be the first time an establishment candidate was able to come back in a presidential primary—just ask Mitt Romney and John McCain. But Bush has a bigger name and even more robust fundraising than those candidates, and he has been unable to dislodge several candidates who have never been elected to any office. It's a sign the country may not be that into a third President Bush.
