With just three days left in the fiscal quarter, GOP presidential candidates are concentrating on raising as much money before this Wednesday’s nights deadline.
Nobody will be more active this week in attending fundraisers than Jeb Bush. The former Florida governor is raising money later today in St. Louis. Tuesday he does the same in Oklahoma, and he then heads off to the Big Apple for similar efforts on Thursday.
It comes as he continues to struggle in the polls; Bush is currently in fifth place nationally with just 7 percent support according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal published on Sunday (trailing Marco Rubio), and with equally mediocre numbers in the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
In addition to raising cash, the Bush campaign is looking for endorsements in New York, endorsements that may be hard to find, according to a report in Monday’s New York Post.
Reporter Fredric Dicker reports Bush is “meeting a cool reception” from some prominent, uncommitted New York Republicans:
“They’re avoiding his calls,” said a prominent GOP operative.
“In the past couple of years when New York party leaders asked Jeb to do some things for them, like come to a fundraiser, it was he who didn’t respond.
“The DC insiders who run Jeb’s campaign obviously didn’t plan ahead,” the operative continued.
Yesterday The Washington Post quoted a “top party fundraiser” not aligned with any campaign as saying, ““People are looking at the stage and saying: ‘Jeb and Marco? I’m going with the new. You’re seeing people really gravitate to [Rubio] and saying, ‘Okay, we’ll buck the Bush machine,'” adding, “What I hear everywhere when you say Jeb’s name is, ‘If you want to lose the general election, nominate Jeb.'”
