Jeb Bush’s Nightmare Scenario

Talk to enough Re­pub­lic­an in­siders about the pres­id­en­tial primary field, and you’ll get a com­mon sen­ti­ment when it comes to Jeb Bush. Most strategists agree that Bush has to over­come ser­i­ous hurdles to win the nom­in­a­tion, but they say he’s a for­mid­able can­did­ate thanks to his deep polit­ic­al net­work and abil­ity to dom­in­ate the com­pet­i­tion in fun­drais­ing. “I can’t see him drop­ping out be­fore Flor­ida,” said one former GOP con­gress­man well-con­nec­ted to the field.

But there are signs that a worst-case, crash-and-burn scen­ario for Bush is more real­ist­ic than even his skep­tics re­cog­nize. He’s un­der­per­form­ing in early pub­lic polls and is re­ceiv­ing a frosty re­cep­tion from Re­pub­lic­an fo­cus groups. His en­titled bio­graphy is at odds with the Re­pub­lic­an Party’s in­creas­ing en­ergy from work­ing-class voters, who re­late best with can­did­ates who have struggled to make ends meet. The Bush name is a re­mind­er of the past at a time when GOP voters are des­per­ate for new faces. And after los­ing two straight pres­id­en­tial elec­tions, Re­pub­lic­an voters are think­ing much more stra­tegic­ally—and aren’t nearly as con­vinced as the polit­ic­al press that Bush is the strongest con­tender against Hil­lary Clin­ton.

It would be fool­ish to over-read the res­ults of fo­cus groups, but it’s equally egre­gious to ig­nore their find­ings—es­pe­cially giv­en that they’re paired with polls that show Bush’s can­did­acy a tough sell among voters. Last week, Bloomberg and Purple Strategies co­sponsored a New Hamp­shire pan­el of 10 Re­pub­lic­ans, most of whom were hos­tile to a Bush pres­id­en­tial bid. “I know enough to know I don’t need to keep vot­ing for a Bush over and over again,” one par­ti­cipant said. Sev­er­al laughed at the no­tion that he’s the front-run­ner. Not a single one said they’d sup­port him for pres­id­ent.

(RE­LATED: Is Hil­lary Clin­ton’s Fam­ous Name Boost­ing Her In Early 2016 Polls?)

In Janu­ary, a fo­cus group in Col­or­ado con­duc­ted by Demo­crat­ic poll­ster Peter Hart for the Annen­berg Pub­lic Policy Cen­ter found sim­il­ar find­ings of an elect­or­ate look­ing for a new gen­er­a­tion of lead­er­ship. “I wouldn’t be op­posed to Con­gress say­ing, ‘If your last name is Clin­ton or Bush, you don’t even get to run,’” one GOP-lean­ing in­de­pend­ent said. Most of the words tied to Bush in a free-as­so­ci­ation ex­er­cise were neg­at­ive. Among them: “Joke,” “No thank you,” and “Don’t need him.” The Wash­ing­ton Post‘s Dan Balz wrote that the par­ti­cipants were “dis­missive, some­times harshly” in their as­sess­ment of Bush.

The fo­cus group an­ec­dotes match what polls have con­sist­ently found. Des­pite Bush’s high pro­file and stand­ing as a more-prag­mat­ic Re­pub­lic­an, his over­all fa­vor­ab­il­ity rat­ings are sur­pris­ingly me­diocre. In a March NBC/Wall Street Journ­al poll test­ing wheth­er GOP voters would con­sider back­ing cer­tain can­did­ates, Bush’s num­bers were in the middle of the pack of the field. While 49 per­cent of Re­pub­lic­ans said they’d con­sider back­ing Bush, 42 per­cent said they couldn’t see them­selves sup­port­ing him. That net +7 ad­vant­age badly trailed Wis­con­sin Gov. Scott Walk­er (+36), Sen. Marco Ru­bio of Flor­ida (+30), and even was be­hind neurosur­geon Ben Car­son (+23), former Arkan­sas Gov. Mike Hucka­bee (+12), and Sen. Rand Paul of Ken­tucky (+9).

Mean­while, this month’s CNN/ORC sur­vey found Bush’s more-mod­er­ate and prag­mat­ic mes­sage hasn’t im­proved his im­age. His na­tion­al fa­vor­ab­il­ity rat­ing is at a sur­pris­ingly low 31/47 level, hampered by very weak num­bers with in­de­pend­ents and Demo­crats. In Iowa, a late-Janu­ary Bloomberg/Des Moines Re­gister poll found his fa­vor­ables among Re­pub­lic­ans barely pos­it­ive, at 46/43, among the worst of the myri­ad can­did­ates tested and on the de­cline from Oc­to­ber 2014. In last month’s Bloomberg/Saint An­selm poll in New Hamp­shire, Bush holds stronger num­bers among Re­pub­lic­ans (61/26 fa­vor­ab­il­ity), but it is still viewed un­fa­vor­ably by the over­all elect­or­ate (35/50).

(RE­LATED: The Trouble With Be­ing Jeb)

The Bush cam­paign’s the­ory of the un­der­whelm­ing polls is that most voters don’t know much about him, and his num­bers are more of a re­flec­tion of his last name than his myri­ad achieve­ments in polit­ic­al life. “People hear the name ‘Bush,’ and they auto­mat­ic­ally as­so­ci­ate him with his broth­er,” said one Bush op­er­at­ive. They be­lieve most voters aren’t fa­mil­i­ar with his deeply con­ser­vat­ive, re­form-ori­ented re­cord as gov­ernor of Flor­ida, and they be­lieve that re­cord will be read­ily ap­par­ent when he par­ti­cip­ates in New Hamp­shire town halls and Iowa cam­paign for­ums.

But it’s equally plaus­ible to see Bush strug­gling to make in­roads with early-state voters. Iowa has been tra­di­tion­ally in­hos­pit­able for es­tab­lish­ment can­did­ates, and there are many can­did­ates who have a stronger ap­peal to the GOP caucuses’ siz­able evan­gel­ic­al elect­or­ate, in­clud­ing Scott Walk­er, Mike Hucka­bee, and Ted Cruz. Bush may not be ex­pec­ted to win the caucuses, but giv­en how crowded the field is, he’s at risk of not pla­cing in the top three.

That would put a lot of pres­sure on his per­form­ance in New Hamp­shire—a state that has been no­tori­ously un­friendly to the Bush fam­ily. In a mem­or­able up­set, John Mc­Cain de­cis­ively de­feated George W. Bush in the 2000 GOP primar­ies, while Pat Buchanan fore­shad­owed George H.W. Bush’s in­tra­party struggles by win­ning 37 per­cent of the primary vote against the sit­ting pres­id­ent in 1992. Bush’s num­bers among Re­pub­lic­ans are much stronger in New Hamp­shire than in Iowa, but voters there are fam­ously res­ist­ant to back­ing front-run­ners, priz­ing their role as the ar­bit­er of GOP nom­in­a­tion battles. Jeb Bush is plan­ning to do many town halls, but it’s an open ques­tion wheth­er a can­did­ate more com­fort­able in the board­room can be­come a crowd fa­vor­ite.

(RE­LATED: Jeb Bush’s Head­winds)

And what if Bush un­der­whelms in both Iowa and New Hamp­shire? South Car­o­lina is no safe bet for Bush, giv­en the pres­ence of Sen. Lind­sey Gra­ham as a home-state spoil­er. Many of the key in-state ad­visers who helped George W. Bush to vic­tory aren’t work­ing with Jeb Bush, as Politico re­por­ted. If Marco Ru­bio ex­ceeds ex­pect­a­tions in the early states, while Bush un­der­per­forms, the Flor­ida primary could also be­come a lot more com­pet­it­ive than it looks right now.

The con­ven­tion­al wis­dom is that Bush’s deep pock­et­books would sus­tain him through March no mat­ter what, al­low­ing him to fo­cus on lar­ger states where re­tail cam­paign­ing isn’t as ef­fi­cient as non­stop, mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar tele­vi­sion ad buys. It’s how suc­cess­ful es­tab­lish­ment can­did­ates have over­come set­backs—from Mitt Rom­ney’s sig­na­ture Flor­ida vic­tory after los­ing in South Car­o­lina to George W. Bush se­cur­ing the nom­in­a­tion in 2000 with a Su­per Tues­day romp against Mc­Cain.

But next year, the ex­pect­a­tions game could be Jeb Bush’s worst en­emy. If the vaunted, well-fun­ded Bush or­gan­iz­a­tion sput­ters through the early states, it would cre­ate a huge va­cu­um that the op­pos­i­tion would be po­si­tioned to ex­ploit. The roster of es­tab­lish­ment al­tern­at­ives is much deep­er than in past GOP primar­ies. If Bush looks like a weak­er can­did­ate than ex­pec­ted, oth­er chal­lengers with com­pel­ling cre­den­tials—Walk­er and Ru­bio be­ing the best-po­si­tioned—will fill the void.

Bush’s main chal­lenge is bio­graph­ic­al, not ideo­lo­gic­al. The no­tion of nom­in­at­ing yet an­oth­er Bush to be pres­id­ent—no mat­ter his qual­i­fic­a­tions—is already strik­ing Re­pub­lic­an voters as a bit far-fetched. Giv­en that the GOP’s strongest as­set is its ar­gu­ment for change, voters will be think­ing closely about wheth­er they want to nom­in­ate a can­did­ate from the past to run against Clin­ton. If Bush can over­come that cred­ib­il­ity test with voters, he’s bound to be a strong con­tender. But if Re­pub­lic­an voters con­tin­ue to res­ist the pro­spect of a Bush fam­ily dyn­asty, he could find him­self strug­gling to get past the start­ing line.