Jeb Bush to Rally Top Donors in Houston, Seek More Cash

At 7 percent, he now trails billionaire business tycoon Donald Trump, retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, Florida Sen.

Bush stuck to much of his campaign stump speech, playing up his education successes as governor in Florida and the need to support Israel and have a strong new investment in the Middle East. The campaign is also cutting staffers’ salaries across the board, downsizing its Miami headquarters, cutting travel expenses by 20 percent and eliminating 45 percent of its overhead.

Publicly, Bush said he is “all in on the primary states including Virginia”, but behind the scenes the Bush team is preparing to place extra emphasis on one state in particular: New Hampshire.

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush speaks during the LIBRE Initiative’s policy forum series at the College of Southern Nevada in North Las Vegas, Nev., Wednesday, October 21, 2015. Trump’s unexpected rise has pulled attention away from other candidates and revealed deep voter frustration with Washington and experienced politicians.

While Bush used his stage time to promote his campaign, on several occasions, he made veiled references to Trump, who in recent months has been a vocal Bush critic.

Trump’s team announced Friday that Joe Gruters, the vice chair of the Floridad Republican Party, will serve as his Florida campaign chair. “We would be less than forthcoming if we said we predicted in June that a reality television star supporting Canadian-style single-payer healthcare and partial-birth abortion would be leading the GOP Primary”, the memo states.

Bush campaigned in Texas on Sunday and California on Monday.

Benavides said the Michigan fundraiser is Bush’s only stop in the state. Many thought his candidacy was over, but he was able to mount a comeback in, ironically, New Hampshire.

Bush is still among the candidates viewed as most electable among Republican voters, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. Even as his campaign fundraising slows, they see his heavily funded super PAC as an advantage that could help him outlast his rivals.

While his campaign raised $13.4 million in the past three months and had $10.3 million in the bank, it was still a sharp drop for Bush. In a statement endorsing the Florida Republican, former Congresswoman Saiki called him “truly qualified” and praised his “positive plans for the future of our nation”. Supporters hope the changes will be enough to keep Bush afloat through a long, and so far surprising, campaign.