On the first day of a two-day Iowa swing back in August, Jeb Bush flew from Davenport to Ankeny in a private plane. The next day, after he spent more than four hours bounding around the State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, a top adviser attributed Bush’s high energy level to having spent less time in transit.



Those days are over.



Last week, Bush spent three days in Iowa, traveling again from Des Moines to the state’s eastern edge, campaigning in the Mississippi River towns of Bettendorf and Muscatine — but this time, he went by car. The campaign also cancelled its reservation at the tony Hotel Blackhawk in nearby Davenport, staying instead at a cheaper hotel. More and more, Bush is flying commercial.

“The high life has ended,” said one Florida operative familiar with the campaign’s operation. “They’re running a more modest operation in the last two weeks, and the traveling party has definitely shrunk.”


Although the Bush campaign has yet to release its fundraising numbers from the third quarter ahead of Thursday’s deadline, the belt-tightening has already begun, at least around the margins with regard to travel.

“Danny and Sally are looking at the budget every week,” said campaign spokeswoman Kristy Campbell, referring to campaign manager Danny Diaz and senior adviser Sally Bradshaw. “We’re going to prioritize voter contact and making sure we’re getting our candidate in front of voters as much as possible in the key early states.”

Conceived as a fundraising juggernaut that would “shock and awe” opponents into oblivion, Bush's campaign is suddenly struggling to raise hard dollars and increasingly economizing — not because he’s out of money, but to convince nervous donors, who are about to get their first look at his campaign's burn rate, that he's not wasting it.



“At a certain point, we want to see a bang for the buck. We’re spending the bucks — and we’re seeing no bang,” a longtime Bush Republican said.



Bush is stuck at 7 percent in an average of national polls. He’s at close to 9 percent in New Hampshire, putting him in sixth place in the early state he most needs to win. Although his poll standing isn’t much better, Marco Rubio is starting to catch the eye of deep-pocketed establishment donors impressed by his leaner operation and unique appeal as a candidate.



Bush’s campaign brushes off the current polls as insignificant in the scheme of the larger nomination fight. Bush himself often reminds reporters and concerned supporters that the primary is a “long haul.” But some donors are running out of patience.

Pete Rummell, a donor and longtime supporter of Bush whom the former governor once appointed to the board that oversees Florida’s universities, couldn't help but reply to a chain email from a number of friends wishing him a happy birthday Tuesday morning with a lament.

“I am worried about Jeb," he wrote.

Bush can tweak his message on a day to day basis, cut costs around the margins and even reduce or reallocate staff. But he remains committed to the large campaign infrastructure he has built to run a national campaign, staff members say. What's changed is the desire to avoid any appearance of extravagence.

Meanwhile, he and his donors have yet to see much return on their spending so far. While the campaign's early state organizations do surpass those of most rivals, Bush’s other major investments — in paid advertising and a policy shop that’s churning out his speeches — have yet to pay real dividends.

In New Hampshire, seen by many as a must-win for Bush, Bush and the Right to Rise super PAC backing him have spent at least $4.8 million on TV and radio to support him since early September. One ad-tracking firm produced an analysis for POLITICO that showed pro-Bush spots in the past three weeks have occupied about 60 percent of the political ad air-time in the state. Bush’s numbers have moved from 9 perrcent to 8.7 percent since the ad blitz began, according to the Real Clear Politics averages of polls in the GOP primary.

Bush’s campaign points out that, though there have been five public polls since pro-Bush ads have hit the New Hampshire airwaves, no new surveys have been taken since Oct. 6. So there’s a chance Bush’s numbers have improved. And, the campaign said, there’s more to its efforts than mere ad time, pointing to the size of its staff and endorsements nationally and in New Hampshire. But when asked how he plans to improve his standing, Bush himself has been blunt: “I’m going to do something really novel,” he said last week. “It’s called advertising.”

Donors frustrated by the campaign’s current trajectory want to see positive movement as a result of Bush’s first month of TV ads; but they recognize that it may not play out that way, especially since many of the candidates polling ahead of him — Donald Trump, Ben Carson and fourth-place Carly Fiorina — aren’t advertising at all.

“In the past, advertising was a show of strength. Now, if you’re advertising it’s because you’re in a weak position,” said Elizabeth Wilner, senior vice president of Kantar Media Ad Intelligence overseeing its Campaign Media Analysis Group.

Unlike the candidates he’s trailing, Bush is also pitching serious policy proposals. He has close to 10 staffers working in his campaign’s policy shop — something Rubio has saved money on by drawing on the work of his Senate office — but the speeches outlining his ideas haven’t yet paid tangible political dividends, a fact his campaign acknowledged.

“A lot of the cable news coverage has focused on the personalities,” said David Kochel, who’s overseeing Bush’s early-state strategy, in a recent interview. “But at the end of the day, when you ask voters what they care about, it's still jobs and the economy. Voters aren't engaged yet. When it gets closer to voting time, people are going to get more serious about who can actually be president.”

For that bet to pay off next fall, Bush must first prevail in a primary to be decided by a conservative electorate more enthralled by emotional anti-establishmentarians.

“In some ways, Jeb launching on a policy axis reinforces the things that people already think about him that explain why he’s in the position he’s in,” said Rick Wilson, a Florida-based GOP consultant. “It doesn’t convince the people driven by anger and emotion that he gets them.”

The long, anti-establishment summer has taken a toll on Bush's fundraising, prompting some of the belt-tightening now taking place. And the success of anti-Washington candidates who make no apology for not offering specific policy proposals has surprised many of his biggest bundlers.

"Trump and also Carly Fiorina have really changed the dynamic by saying 'We don’t have to have policy [proposals], we’ll figure it out later,' and voters saying, 'OK,' " said Fred Zeidman, a Bush bundler based in Houston.

Bush's vast family network of donors was far more willing to write big checks to his super PAC earlier this year, when he still looked every bit the dominant front-runner and likely GOP nominee. Now, though, as his campaign is in desperate need of hard dollars in order to cover its day-to-day costs — staff salaries, travel expenses, paid media — those same donors aren't as eager to double down on an underperforming candidate.

The $100 million that Right to Rise socked away early on, which will be used to sell Bush and, if that fails, take out his rivals, might just be the only thing that can save his campaign.

“Thank God we did it when we could," Zeidman said. "We figured that if fundraising dried up, we’d have the powder to stay in the race.”

