Jeb Bush will have to work a lot harder than either his father or his brother to get to the White House if he throws his hat in the ring for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, polling expert Larry Sabato tells
Newsmax TV.
On Tuesday, the former governor of Florida announced he is "actively" exploring a run for president, but the announcement was somewhat underwhelming to Sabato, director at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
"I thought the Bush people would have a lot of establishment figures in the party line up to say, 'Hosanna! Hail to the next Bush! Here's the solution to our problems!'" Sabato said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show."
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"There were a few of those, but I heard more from conservative activists, tea party members, and others who, to summarize, their remarks, said 'No more Bushes!' over and over again.
"So that's going to be a problem for him. It's going to be tougher for him than it was for his father in 1988 or his brother in 2000."
Whether Bush would face former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also a crapshoot, because her support among some Democrats appears to be slipping, Sabato believes.
"What is it saying that over 300 former campaign staffers of Barack Obama send a message, an open call to [Sen.] Elizabeth Warren, to run? What does it say that MoveOn.org is raising $1 million to hand to her to encourage her candidacy?" Sabato said.
"[It] says that Hillary Clinton has not excited the Democratic base to the extent that the Clintonites would have hoped by now. They wanted a coronation.
"They may still get a coronation, you just never know, but it seems to me that there is some uneasiness about having, virtually, an unopposed nominating process with one enormously dominating candidate and a few minor candidates who are like tsetse flies."
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