Jeb Bush’s Poll Numbers Continue To Plummet
Jeb Bush has had anything but a successful campaign so far. While the former governor of Florida remains the favorite among establishment Republicans, GOP voters are not interested.
In August, the son and brother of former presidents was polling at around 13 percent. Now, he’s at around 6 percent. That’s a pretty impressive decline and there are no signs of a comeback. This election cycle has been a testament to the growing number of Republicans who have become disillusioned with the establishment.
Outsider candidates have, so far, ruled the GOP presidential race. Donald Trump — who by anyone’s measure — is an outside candidate, has held first place in the race for months. Though his un-favorability numbers are high, his favorability numbers are actually higher than Jeb’s.
Several gaffes and an overall boring campaign have led to dropping poll numbers and low favorability numbers. As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Bush upset many when he used a callous term when referring to the recent Oregon Community College shooting.
After the shooting, Bush was making the case that new gun laws may not be the answer to stop further mass shootings from happening. Like other GOP candidates, he instead said that we needed to mourn the ones who died and avoid knee-jerk legislation action.
During his remarks, Jeb used the term “stuff happens” which unleashed waves of criticism. Mr. Bush later apologized and said that he should have used a different word.
“I had this challenge as governor because we had—look, stuff happens,”
Instead of using the word “stuff,” Bush said he should have used a word like “things.” Regardless of the specific word usage, his response was seen by many as lacking compassion and callous.
Donald Trump has had much more controversy during his campaign compared to Jeb. For some reason, all the controversial or inflammatory remarks Trump has made have not really harmed his campaign.
It’s interesting that Trump is able to go unscathed through controversy, but Jeb is bogged down by the slightest misstep. His campaign really took a turn when he fell to third place, falling out of second place and being replaced by Ben Carson, another outsider candidate.
Once Bush was thrown into third place, it wasn’t long before he continued to fall. Bush is currently in fifth place according to most polls. Senator Marco Rubio is now in third, and Carly Fiorina is in forth.
There are three Republican candidates in the race that are considered outsiders. The most notable is Donald Trump, who has never held a political office in his life, and is doing the best in the GOP race. Ben Carson is doing really well also, currently polling at around 18 percent with some polls putting him over 21 percent. Carly Fiorina is another outsider candidate and has improved her polling numbers drastically.
As CBS reported, The Federalist’s Ben Domenech said that Jeb has quite a difficult road ahead if he’s to turn around his poll numbers.
“I’m not sure he has an easy path to do so, and it’s going to be a real test for him, because he has to defend not just his own record, but his brother’s, which is a real challenge with the current Republican crop of voters.”
As Domenech mentioned, many voters — both Republican and Democrat — do not approve of the previous president George W. Bush. As his brother, Jeb has to defend his record and that of his brother.
[Photo by Sean Rayford / Getty Images]
