For a few months now, Jeb Bush's campaign has been insisting that the Jeb! Comeback is on, and that the media should get on the ground floor of this amazing narrative. Well, life is full of ups and downs. Here's how the comeback is going.
It wasn't too long ago that Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor in the midst of a comeback run for the GOP nomination, guaranteed he would prevail in the New Hampshire primary. Which is a pretty good thing, since he's not looking like a winner in Iowa. What if what you needed to succeed in life was to get people from Iowa or New Hampshire to like you? Ever thought about that? Bet you're feeling pretty happy with your choices now.
Anyway, the contest in the Granite State is a real barn-burner, with Politico reporting that polls show "significant movement, and a competitive battle for second and third place within the margin of error." And then there's Bush, who has... uhm... dropped to a piddling 4 percent in the latest Monmouth University poll of likely GOP primary voters in New Hampshire. Yikes. What else is new?
Trump jumped six points from the November poll, to 32 percent, followed by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, both at 14 percent. For Cruz, the results mark an increase of 5 points from the last survey, while for Kasich, Monday's poll is a three-point bump.
Wow, look at you, John Kasich! Grab yourself a "-mentum" suffix to stick on your last name.
These bad numbers in New Hampshire come on the heels of other numbers, signifying doom like the patter of little cats' feet. As HuffPost's own Janie Valencia reported:
According to a Gallup poll released Friday, Bush has fallen to a minus 1 favorable rating among Republicans. Forty-four percent of Republicans give the candidate a positive rating while 45 percent give him a negative rating.
The "Jeb!" campaign, despite efforts to improve his image, has managed to make Bush the least liked candidate in the Republican race. Perceptions of Bush have been in steady decline since Gallup first started tracking his favorability last July, when he had a peak favorable rating of 27.
The good news, as BuzzFeed's Andrew Kaczynski reports, is that Bush has responded to this news in Churchillian fashion:
When asked about the decline on NewsMax Now Friday, Bush said, “Hell if I know, I don’t really care.”
And for the moment, that's something everyone can agree on, apparently.
This has been the Jeb! Comeback Watch for Jan. 11, 2015. Jeb Bush is currently in fifth place in Iowa (4.0 percent), sixth place in New Hampshire (7.8 percent) and fifth place nationally (5.1 percent).