Thread: Poll: Jeb Bush Drops to Fifth in Home State of Florida

by MIKE FLYNN
8 Feb 2016

A new poll from Florida Southern College captures the fading hopes of Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign. The former two-term Governor has dropped to fifth place in the Sunshine State, barely registering with just 4 percent support.

Tellingly, Bush’s support is within in the poll’s margin of error.

In the poll, Donald Trump leads the Republican field with 27 percent support. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)is in second place with 20 percent support. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has 12 percent and Ben Carson has 6 percent.

Florida’s primary is March 15. Party leaders in the state moved the primary later in the calendar so its delegates could be awarded “winner-take-all”, i.e. the candidate who finishes first gets all of Florida’s delegates. The move was widely seen as an assist to Bush, who was favored to win his home state.

As polling stands now, neither of Florida’s native sons, Bush or Rubio, would receive any delegates from their home state, as Trump maintains a strong lead. It is a cautionary tale not to take things for granted in a dynamic nominating contest.

Trump’s support is down considerably since polling in January. In the current RealClearPolitics average of polls, which is made up of polls in January, Trump enjoys a 21 point lead. This latest poll from Florida Southern, conducted in the days following the Iowa caucus, shows considerable tightening in the race.

Rubio has gained a considerable amount of support since the caucus, mostly at the expense of both Trump and Cruz. The fascinating thing, though, is that Rubio’s fortunates in his home state have seemingly improved because of his performance in other contests. One would normally expect a home state to provide a signficant amount of support, irrespective of how the campaign is doing elsewhere.

Still, the most important take-away is the utter collapse of support for Jeb Bush, even in his home state. In July, Bush regularly enjoyed double-digit leads in Florida polling. Since the beginning of January, he has lost two-thirds of his support.

Florida Republicans moved their primary in hopes of giving one of their own a decisive edge in the nomination battle. Instead, the state may provide the final coda for one or both of their native sons’ campaigns.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...state-florida/

This candidate has spent so much money in this campaign and his message to my knowledge has never resonated with anyone except the deeply entrenched establishment who are for now somewhat antiquated and dismayed. Point being, he is not listening at all to prospective voters about what they seek in a candidate. His eyes and ears are closed as to what this election is even about. Hopefully the embarrassment for his family and himself will end soon.

And to get back on topic, even the Floridians who he has repeatedly told us that he did such a good job for barely support him.

It's good news that Bush has sunk so low in his home state, but it's very concerning that Rubio has risen so high.

Just not that concerned about Rubio yet. You still have to add back all the other support when candidates begin to drop out. Predicting where it will end up is fun, but that will add more strength to whoever the establishment candidate ends up being. Rubio's performance the other night was slightly revealing about how he is going to handle pressure in the future. This isn't small time, as you know the real pressure will kick in soon and if he is still the front runner with Trump and Cruz, they just need to take turns pulverizing him. What may be a little more concerning for me is the vast money behind the establishment candidate, the relentless barrage of negative commercials to follow and the possibility of game playing by the GOP if they don't like where this is headed.