The Fall of Dynasties

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a discussion of state and local politics.

At Politico, Alexander Burns notes that Andrew Cuomo's primary defeat is part of a larger pattern:

In the past few years, we have seen Democratic primary voters reject members of political dynasties once seen as nearly undefeatable, including a Kennedy in Massachusetts, a Daley in Illinois and a Graham in Florida. When Tammy Murphy, the first lady of New Jersey, attempted to swoop into a Senate seat with the help of her husband’s machine, she was blown out of the race by an insurgent who embodied generational change, now-Sen. Andy Kim.

On the right, Donald Trump’s political movement has purged the party’s most storied dynasties. Republican voters spurned members of the Bush family, Jeb and his son George P., in primary elections. The Cheney family’s titanic stature in Wyoming — and a direct-to-camera appeal from Dick Cheney himself — could not save former Rep. Liz Cheney from a primary challenger in 2022. A scheme by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to install his spouse, Casey, as his successor appears to have unraveled before it began.

General election voters have done their part, declining to elect a Pryor in Arkansas, a Landrieu in Louisiana, a Nunn and a Carter in Georgia, a Laxalt in Nevada, a Casey in Pennsylvania and a Clinton on the national ballot.

Learning the Right and Wrong Lessons

Reposted from Fox and Hounds:

Defeat can be a much better teacher than victory. Hillary Clinton entered the 2008 nomination as the odds-on favorite, but in a stunning upset, lost to a young senator from Illinois. Her loss was emotionally searing but politically educational. Specifically, she learned three lessons that she has been applying during the 2016 contest.

First, organize the caucus states. Assuming that primaries were the main event of 2008, the Clinton campaign failed to put enough money and labor into the caucuses (though she did win Nevada). In the end she actually edged out Obama among delegates from states with contested primaries, but Obama became the inevitable nominee by building an insurmountable lead in the caucus states. This time, she is not taking the caucuses for granted, and her superior organization enabled her to prevent a surging Sanders from winning Nevada.

Second, pay attention to the superdelegates. The Democratic Party provides a certain number of convention seats (712 in 2016) to elected officials and other party figures who are free to exercise their own judgment. In 2008, Obama worked the superdelegates much more skillfully than Clinton, even persuading some high-profile Clinton supporters (e.g., Rep. John Lewis of Georgia) to switch sides. This time, Clinton already has the support of more than 400 superdelegates. Expect her campaign to keep careful watch on them: there will be no poaching in this field of delegate dreams.

Third, hang on to the African American vote, which accounts for a huge chunk of the Democratic electorate. Surprising as it may seem today, Clinton started the 2008 campaign with a big advantage over Obama among African Americans. After Obama won Iowa, however, this constituency shifted in his direction. In 2016, Clinton does not have to worry about battling a charismatic African American senator. Still, she is taking no chances, and her campaign surrogates are constantly belittling the depth of Bernie Sanders’s commitment to civil rights. The Clinton line of attack has produced an odd side effect: the Sanders campaign is crowing at the discovery of 1963 photo showing Chicago police grabbing Sanders at a civil rights protest. It is quite rare for candidates to brag about their arrest records, but this novel approach is probably not enough to overcome Clinton’s long ties with civil rights leaders. In Nevada, Clinton won 76 percent of African American caucus-goers, compared with just 22 percent for Sanders.

If Hillary Clinton learned useful lessons from her earlier failure, Jeb Bush learned the wrong lessons from his family’s success. He planned to start the campaign with a huge warchest and list of endorsements, just as George W. Bush had done before the 2000 campaign. This “shock and awe” strategy aimed to intimidate other candidates so Bush could clinch the nomination early in the season.

Under certain circumstances, that strategy could make sense, but in this case, it underestimated the liabilities of the Bush name. Conservatives lament the expansion of government during the last Bush administration, and many other voters have bad memories of the Iraq War. The strategy also overlooked the demagogic appeal of a billionaire celebrity.

In 2000, George W. Bush essentially secured his nomination by defeating John McCain in the South Carolina primary. Sixteen years later, that same state put an end to his brother’s campaign.

Right to Rise v. Trump (and Cruz and Rubio)

The New York Times reports on Right  to Rise:

The “super PAC” supporting Jeb Bush is running a brutal ad against Donald J. Trump in South Carolina, the latest in a string of negative spots to take on the Republican candidate who is leading the polls. ...

The ad is a companion to another spot, running on national cable networks, showing Mr. Trump as a huge ice sculpture melting as the narrator ticks off ways in which he has not been consistent on core conservative issues like abortion.

Right to Rise Copies Hubert Humphrey Anti-Nixon Ad

The pro-Bush super PAC Right to Rise is attacking Marco Rubio with an ad that is remarkably similar to an attack ad that Hubert Humphrey ran against Nixon in 1968.

Bush's Sinking Favorability

Gallup reports:

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's image among Republicans has steadily worsened over the past 5 ½ months. His current net favorable rating of -1 (44% favorable, 45% unfavorable) among Republicans is significantly lower than his +27 (54% favorable, 27% unfavorable) rating in mid-July.

Bush's overall familiarity among Republicans -- defined as the percentage who know him well enough to rate him either positively or negatively -- was already high (81%) when Gallup began tracking the candidate images in mid-July. That score has since edged upward, to 89%, second only to Donald Trump's 94% among the major GOP candidates.

But Bush's campaign efforts since July have clearly moved his image in a negative direction. The percentage of Republicans with a favorable opinion of Bush has dropped 10 percentage points, while the percentage with an unfavorable opinion has increased 18 points.

A Multisided Mainstream Gunfight

At The Washington Post,  Karen Tumulty, Ed O'Keefe and Philip Rucker report that candidates in the mainstream GOP wing are attacking one another. The Bush Super PAC and Chris  Christie is going after Rubio's attendance record.

Meanwhile, Right to Rise USA also launched a spot in New Hampshire contending that the gubernatorial records of Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich do not stack up against that of Bush. The ad was gentler in tone than the super PAC’s assault on Rubio, but it attempted to draw a contrast on the experience that all three of the candidates consider to be their greatest asset.

New Day in America, a super PAC supporting Kasich, responded: “What Team Jeb has failed to address is the political baggage dragging behind Bush and Christie. The country doesn’t have an appetite for another Bush, or another Clinton, for that matter. As for Governor Christie, his mishandling of his state budget and the ‘Bridgegate’ scandal have earned him a 60 percent unfavorable rating from those who know him best — the people of New Jersey.”

The crossfire, said GOP political consultant Alex Castellanos, is beginning to look like “a ‘Fistful of Dollars’ gunfight,” referring to the 1964 spaghetti western that launched Clint Eastwood to stardom.

A more apposite scene is from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, which featured a three-way gunfight:




Also at The Post, James Hohmann writes:

Then Mike Murphy, the strategist behind the Bush super PAC, began tweeting out pictures of embarrassing documents that his opposition researchers had collected from an archive of Kasich’s congressional papers. Among them: a 1980 thank you note from Phil Crane, the Illinois congressman whom Kasich backed over Ronald Reagan in the primaries, and a personalized letter of gratitude from Bill Clinton after Kasich supported the 1994 ban on assault weapons.

Jeb Takes on Trump

In an online video, Jeb Bush goes after Trump as a "chaos candidate."

Marco, the Second

Fox News reports:

A new poll released Wednesday shows Dr. Ben Carson falling to third place in the race for the Republican 2016 nomination, while Florida Senator Marco Rubio surges into second – but still a significant distance behind frontrunner Donald Trump, who holds a comfortable lead.

The Quinnipiac University National Poll shows Trump leading with 27 percent of Republican voters, while Rubio moves into second place with 17 percent. Carson, who was in a virtual tie with Trump in a Quinnipiac poll taken last month, finds his support dropping to 16 percent, now tied with Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

In October, Carson polled at 23 percent, just shy of Trump’s 24 percent. In a Quinnipiac poll taken at the end of September, Carson polled at 17 percent – putting him in second place at that time.

Meanwhile Rubio's numbers show a steady increase from the 9 percent he received in September, and 14 percent he received last month.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush still finds his support in single digits, polling at just 5 percent, while no other candidate tops 3 percent.

The GOP Nomination Process Tilts Toward Mainstream Candidates

At FiveThirtyEight, David Wasserman expands on blue-state influence in GOP nominations:

The average blue district awards one convention delegate per 28,912 Romney voters, while the average red district awards one delegate per every 56,714 Romney voters. Thanks to this disparity, if a hard-right candidate like Cruz dominates deeply red Southern districts in the SEC primary, a more electable candidate like Rubio could quickly erase that deficit by quietly piling up smaller raw-vote wins in more liberal urban and coastal districts.

The RNC partially compensates for this imbalance in the way it awards delegates on a statewide basis. Republicans award “bonus” delegates to states with lots of GOP officeholders and states with the best GOP performance in the last election. For example, despite both states having nine congressional districts, Tennessee will send 58 delegates to the Cleveland convention while Massachusetts will send 42.

But the bigger boon to Rubio, Bush and other moderates is that the opinions of GOP voters in places like Massachusetts count at all in this process — in an era when the Bay State sends zero Republicans to Congress. It’s a huge factor that many pundits tend to overlook, and it’s why the temperament and qualities that the broader party looks for in a nominee differ so much from those of the loudest and most ideological Freedom Caucus types in Washington.

Mary Matalin Analyzes Bush's Blunder

The Hill reports:

Former Bush family advisor Mary Matalin says she was “flummoxed” by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s performance at Wednesday’s GOP presidential debate.

The veteran GOP strategist said Bush’s decision to go after Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for missing votes in the Senate was an example of “political malfeasance.”

“I love Jeb and I know Jeb, and I’m flummoxed by that,” she told host John Catsimatidis on “The Cats Roundtable” on New York’s AM-970, in an interview set to be aired Sunday.

“It’s a violation of debate 101: Never ask an opponent or never address to an opponent something you know he’s prepared for, which clearly Rubio was,” she said, adding: “It cuts against his message of ‘I’m a happy warrior.’ ”

Rubio Wins the Appleknocker Primary...

Marco Rubio is now the candidate of establishment/appleknocker/somehat-conservtive Republicans.

Maggie Haberman and Nicholas Confessore report at The New York Times:

One of the wealthiest and most influential Republican donors in the country is throwing his support to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a decision that could swing millions of dollars in contributions behind Mr. Rubio at a critical point in the Republican nominating battle.

The decision by the donor, Paul Singer, a billionaire New York investor, is a signal victory for Mr. Rubio in his battle with his rival Jeb Bush for the affections of major Republican patrons and the party’s business wing.

It comes as a major blow to Mr. Bush, who is seeing his once vigorous campaign imperiled by doubts among supporters, and whose early dominance of the race was driven by his financial muscle. Mr. Bush and several other candidates, including Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, had competed fiercely for Mr. Singer’s blessing.

In a letter that Mr. Singer sent to dozens of other donors on Friday, which was obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Singer described Mr. Rubio — who was elected to the Senate in theTea Party wave but has been embraced by the party’s Washington elite — as the only candidate who can “navigate this complex primary process, and still be in a position to defeat” Hillary Rodham Clinton in a general election.

About the same time in the 2012 cycle, there was a similar shift toward Mitt Romney. 

Bush's Playbook and Anti-Rubio Oppo

US News reports on a leaked Bush Powerpoint:

While the slides released to the press highlight Bush's Sunshine State endorsements and Rubio's lack of experience, another page for donor edification gets dirtier.

It's titled "Marco Is A Risky Bet," and it bullet-points Rubio's "misuse of state party credit cards, taxpayer funds and ties to scandal-tarred former Congressman David Rivera."

When Rubio was a state lawmaker, he used the state party credit card for personal expenses, a decision he later called a mistake. In 2005, he and Rivera jointly purchased a home that later faced foreclosure.

Another bullet point says Rubio's "closeness with Norman Braman, who doubles as personal benefactor[,] raises major ethical questions."

Braman, a billionaire auto dealer, is expected to pour $10 million into Rubio's White House endeavor, The New York Times reports. He's also paid Rubio's wife to oversee his charitable work.

The Bush team also mocks Rubio's "tomorrow versus yesterday" argument as one that would be "widely ridiculed by media" should he run against the first potential female president.

The most cryptic slight is left for last: "Those who have looked into Marco's background in the past have been concerned with what they have found."

A Bush aide says that line refers to concerns Mitt Romney's team unearthed when they vetted Rubio for vice president in 2012

Rubio Wins the Debate

Chris Cillizza writes:

The Florida Senator was good in the first two debates. He was outstanding in this one. The long-awaited showdown between Rubio and Bush wound up being a romp; Jeb tried to attack on Rubio's Senate attendance but got schooled by a very well-prepared Rubio. Rubio repeatedly took tough questions and turned them to his advantage, finding ways to tell his compelling personal story and steer the conversation toward what the GOP needs to do to beat Hillary Clinton. Rubio, as I've long noted, is the most naturally talented candidate in either party's field; he showed it tonight.

Andre Tartar writes at Bloomberg:

Rubio received nine direct questions or rebuttal invitations to Bush's six, and spoke for more than 10 minutes while Bush squeaked out less than seven minutes of air time. The audience engagement gap proved even wider. Rubio landed at least nine applause and laugh lines throughout the two-hour debate, compared to just one recorded laugh for Bush, according to an analysis of a Federal News Service rush transcript conducted by Bloomberg Politics in partnership with Adam Tiouririne (@Tiouririne) of Logos Consulting Group. He advises senior business executives on high-stakes communication, grounded in research about how leaders perform at their most important—and most public—moments.

Michael Barone points out that the hostile questions were actually good for the field:

The Republican debaters got great mileage out of bashing the moderators, and justifiably so. But I think their call for more sympathetic moderators is unwise. The unsympathetic moderators not only produced a debate which benefited the Republicans with their constituency, but also elicited from them some major themes which work for their party and against the Democrats — notably the arguments against crony capitalism and the argument, made most cogently by Carly Fiorina but echoed by others, that big government policies favor the wealthy and the well-connected and leave ordinary people and the poor worse off. Hostile moderators gave the candidates a chance to make strong arguments which could work for the eventual nominee.

Greg Sargent gets the Rubio formula:

Last night, Rubio, in what appeared to be an appeal to the deep resentment of many of these voters, skillfully converted legitimate questions about his personal financial management into evidence of Democratic and elite media contempt for his relatively humble upbringing, which he proceeded to explain he had overcome through hard work. Rubio’s narrative is both laden with legitimate resentment and inspiring!

Will Rubio Take the Establishment Slot from Bush?

Even though not everything is going well for Rubio, Justin Wolfers writes at The New York Times:

It’s official: Jeb Bush is no longer the leading contender to become the Republican candidate for president. Instead, prediction markets now rate Marco Rubio as far more likely to get the nod.

One broad measure of the betting markets puts Mr. Rubio’s chances at 34 percent versus Mr. Bush’s at 23 percent.

The extent of this reversal is stark. Mr. Bush’s name recognition, executive experience and links to the Republican establishment led the betting markets to rate him the most likely winner even before he announced his candidacy. He took an early and commanding lead in fund-raising and won the most endorsements from fellow Republicans. He also led in most national polls, at least until mid-July, when Donald Trump wrestled the national spotlight from him and has continued to entertain its bright glare. Recent polls suggest that only around 7 percent of potential Republican voters plan to vote for Mr. Bush. 

Indeed, Philip Rucker, Ed O'Keefe and Sean Sullivan write at The Washington Post that Bush is cutting salaries.

Privately, some donors have been fretting and eyeing Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who won plaudits for his debate performances and has shown momentum in polls as an establishment alternative. Donors said senior campaign officials have sought to quiet their concerns. Finance director Heather Larrison held a conference call this week explaining the steps the campaign was taking to improve its financial outlook.

But one Bush fundraiser who requested anonymity to speak freely said: “It feels very much like a death spiral, and it breaks my heart. I don’t know anyone who wants to reinvest now.” The campaign, this person added, has been “head-scratchingly bad in every element. I wouldn’t be shocked in 60 days from now if he wasn’t in the race.” 

What happened to Bush? Henry Olsen compares him to Rip Van Winkle:

If this seems harsh, consider the facts. Jeb has not run for office since his easy re-election in 2002. He has not had a tight, competitive race since 1998, and he has not run in a GOP primary since 1994. When Jeb ran his tough races, his brother had not yet won the Presidency; 9/11 had not happened; economic growth was both plentiful and widely shared. Latino immigration had not yet reached the level that has sparked the immigration wars of the last decade, and the Republican base had not exploded in anger over the sense that its leadership, including his brother, had betrayed them time and time again.

And, of course, Barack Obama had not yet been elected. Obama’s ambitious agenda has moved the country much farther to the left than when Bush was active in politics.

One can see how Bush has struggled with these changes time and time again. His two policy passions seem to be education and immigration reform. These were state of the art conservative priorities in 2000 when W ran, but have long since stopped being animating features of the movement. NCLB is widely derided on the right and Common Core is seen as the further federalization of education in the same vein as his brother’s landmark effort. Doubling down on these priorities, as Bush has done, has simply reinforced the notion that he is running on yesterday’s platform.

Bush Underperforming, but Rubio Is Not Soaring Yet

At The Washington Post, Dan Balz writes:

What’s happened to Bush during the past three months? Nationally, Bush was running second in July with an average poll rating of 13 to 14 percent. Today he’s fallen to just about 8 percent and is fourth overall. In Iowa, his average has dropped a couple of points (within the margin of error) and his standing is now fifth rather than third. In New Hampshire, he’s gone from second place in the poll average to fifth and his support has fallen several points.

With Kasich and Christie farther down, Bush and Rubio are seen on a collision course in the mainstream conservative competition. Rubio has gotten the better of the coverage of late, the aspirational fresh face versus a candidate with experience and a family name that is a mixed blessing. Rubio’s debate performances have been well praised, and his approach to campaigning similarly has been commended for its patience and potential.

There are caveats, however. Rubio raised less than half of what Bush collected in the third quarter. In fact, he raised a million and a half dollars less than Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who quit the race last month. He raised about as million less than Carly Fiorina.

The same holds for what the polls show. Between July and today, Rubio’s poll numbers nationally have ticked up a point and he continues to occupy third place. In Iowa, he’s lost a point and has dropped from fifth to sixth. In New Hampshire, he’s also lost a point and dropped one place, to seventh. This is not evidence of a surge. If Bush has performed below expectations as a candidate, Rubio has not yet played up to the potential for attracting support that some Republicans see in him.

HRC, Jeb, and Wall Street

Reuters reports:

Jeb Bush is leading the U.S. presidential campaign by at least one measure: financial support from Wall Street. 

The former Florida governor who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination received more financial backing than any competitor - Democrat or Republican - from employees of the major Wall Street banks between July and the end of September, campaign filings released on Thursday show. 

Employees from Bank of America (BAC.N), Citigroup (C.N), Credit Suisse (MLPN.P), Goldman Sachs (GS.N), HSBC HSBCUK.UL, JPMorgan Chase JPN.N, Morgan Stanley(MS.N) and UBS UBSAG.UL gave Bush a combined $107,000. He also received the maximum-allowed $2,700 from billionaire hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman. 

The sums are miniscule compared to Bush's total haul for the quarter of $13.4 million. But his popularity among financiers is starkly different from his standing in the multitude of national polls. 

Bush, seen as a moderate in the crowded Republican field where 14 candidates are competing for the nomination, trails Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, three candidates who have never held elected office, in every major poll.

The second most popular candidate on Wall Street according to giving patterns is Democratic front-runner and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She took in nearly $84,000 from employees of the same banks.

The Establishment Bracket's Final Three: Bush, Rubio, Kasich

At The Washington Post, Dan Balz writes that Bush, Rubio and Kasich are vying to be the candidate of their own bracket (mainstream/establishment/somewhat-conservative/aspirational):

Rubio has long emphasized that the party needs a fresh candidate, not one tied to the past, an implicit criticism of his fellow Floridian who is part of an American political dynasty. Bush, a two-term former governor, has belittled Rubio’s experience, or lack thereof. Kasich, a two-term governor and longtime House member, has claimed that his experience and record are unmatched by any of the other candidates.

Advisers to the three anticipate more attacks ahead. “The Bush campaign is feverishly doing their opposition research on Governor Kasich and Senator Rubio,” said John Weaver, Kasich’s chief strategist. “An empire like that is not going to go quietly into the night. We’re expecting pretty sharp elbows to be thrown. We’re going to handle it head on.”

Past Republican nomination contests often have devolved into competition between a candidate from the center-right or mainstream conservative wing of the party and a candidate from the hard right or populist conservative wing. Most times, the candidate from the mainstream conservative wing becomes the nominee.

This year, the race is more scrambled because of the added factor of the apparent desire by many Republicans for an outsider or non-politician. That has elevated Trump, Carson and Fiorina and has forced the others to adapt. Rubio has been stressing that, despite being in the Senate, he’s really not of Washington.

Instead of establishment vs. tea party, one GOP strategist describes the race this time as a competition between those in the anger, or anti-Washington, lane, vs. those in the aspirational lane. Bush, Rubio and Kasich all fall more into the aspirational lane.

Hispanics' Views of the GOP Candidate: Modestly Pro-Bush, Vehemently Anti-Trump

Gallup reports:

U.S. Hispanics are still getting to know most of the Republican contenders for president. At this point in the campaign, less than half have formed an opinion of any Republican candidate except Donald Trump and Jeb Bush. Partly because of this, Hispanics' views of most GOP candidates range from mildly positive to mildly negative. The sole exception is Trump, whose favorable rating with Hispanics is deeply negative.

Gallup began tracking the images of all the major announced candidates for president nightly in early July. Since then, 14% of the roughly 650 Hispanics interviewed have said they view Trump favorably, while 65% have viewed him unfavorably, yielding a net favorable score of -51. This separates Trump from the next-most-unpopular Republicans among Hispanics -- Rick Perry (-7), Ted Cruz (-7) and Jim Gilmore (-6), who are viewed far less negatively.

Bush presents the greatest contrast to Trump. Bush's average 34% favorable and 23% unfavorable ratings among Hispanics since July give him a +11 net favorable score -- the highest of any GOP candidate. The net favorable scores of Marco Rubio (+5), Carly Fiorina (+3), George Pataki (+3), Scott Walker (+2) and Ben Carson (+2) all tilt slightly positive, although none of these candidates is nearly as well-known among Hispanics as Trump and Bush.

In terms of familiarity, only Trump and Bush are recognized by a majority of Hispanics. Eight in 10 have formed an opinion of Trump and about six in 10 of Bush. Familiarity dwindles to roughly 40% for Rubio and Cruz, both Cuban-Americans, as well as for Perry and Chris Christie, but drops well below that for all the others.

Dynasts

At The Weekly Standard, Noemie Emery has some observations on dynasty candidates:

By the time that he or she faces the voters, a dynast may inherit as many as three generations of aides and retainers, 30 years or more removed from each other, and with different, sometimes clashing views. Ted Kennedy in 1980 had Jack people from 1952-60, Bobby people from 1964-68, and his personal aides from the Senate; Jeb Bush has Bush 41 and Bush 43 people, as well as his own people from Florida; Hillary has her staff from the State Department, her staff from the Senate, the people she worked with when she was first lady, as well as what remains of Bill’s original Arkansas mafia. Light-years apart, they often have different issue agendas and fail to merge smoothly. Time may be lost in dealing with their arguments. And then, there are problems with famous relations, both dead and living. If they look too big, they can make you look smaller; if all too human-sized, then there are things to explain.

Bush: Well-Funded Indifference

Seema Mehta writes at The Los Angeles Times:

On paper, Jeb Bush is the perfect establishment candidate for the Republican presidential nomination:

A two-term governor of a crucial swing state who oversaw economic expansion and spearheaded education reform.

A conservative, but with a cerebral, optimistic tone that probably won't enrage moderate voters, unlike the unabashed social-issue warriors in the GOP field.

A prolific fundraiser whose advantage stems from the powerful donor networks of his brother, former President George W. Bush, and his father, former President George H.W. Bush.

Yet the former Florida governor — for all his might on paper — has failed to catch on with Republican voters.

In recent weeks, his strongest showing was in the low double digits in polls both nationally and in the states that hold the first contests in the 2016 race for the White House. A CNN/ORC poll taken in Iowa and released Wednesday showed Bush with 5% support compared with front-runner Donald Trump's 22%.

AP reports:

The heavily funded super PAC backing Republican Jeb Bush will spend at least $10 million on television time in the earliest voting presidential primary states, the first salvo in a massive TV ad campaign to support the former Florida governor's bid for the Republican nomination.

Officials with Right to Rise USA say they will buy time in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina TV markets and on cable television in the three states. Ads are scheduled to begin in Iowa and New Hampshire on Sept. 15, in South Carolina a week later and then run continuously through the end of the year.