Jeb Bush's campaign will cut payroll costs by 40 percent. (Getty) | Getty Jeb Bush slashes costs as campaign gasps

Jeb Bush's campaign insists the wholesale restructuring announced Friday is merely a course correction, a reallocation of resources and heightened focus on New Hampshire. But for a growing number of Bush's supporters, frustrated by his prolonged slump and poor performance, the latest campaign shake-up is looking like more of a death knell.

Starting on Nov. 1, the campaign will cut payroll costs by 40 percent, downsize its Miami headquarters by more than 50 percent, reduce travel costs by 20 percent and cut 45 percent of spending on things other than media and voter contact. Even if those moves ease financial pressures on Bush's large campaign operation, they only reinforce the prevailing narrative about a candidate, not long ago viewed as a front-runner, in freefall.


According to donors, some of whom called for Bush to rein in its spending, the campaign's assurances about its organizational and financial advantages have worn thin; and the third-quarter financial report, filed last week, gave further definition to their growing concerns about the state of a big-spending campaign failing to deliver results.

“These donors are not finding these explanations by the Bush team believable," said one bundler, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "There’s a lot of frustration that a lot of money’s been spent and it hasn’t moved anything."

While there were signs the campaign faced trouble, Bush's team didn't know the depths of its problems until it got to look at the other campaigns' finance reports. The just-ended quarter — the first full period in which all the major candidates had announced and campaigned — set off alarms in Miami.

"I don't want to say panic, but we were nervous," a Bush staffer said. "Marco lied about how much he raised and spent, but the reality is suddenly his campaign had about as much money as we did, but it wasn't as big."

This weekend, Bush goes to Houston for a weekend meeting with his father and brother, an event conceived as a reward — a pep rally of sorts — for major donors but one that now serves to further underline the campaign's reliance on an old network of family funders and its glaring lack of rank-and-file support beyond the GOP's moneyed class.

From there, Bush heads to Colorado for the third GOP presidential primary debate on Wednesday. In the aftermath of Friday's shake-up, he'll be in dire need of a strong performance, several Bush supporters said.

"He needs a huge performance," one Tallahassee-based donor said. "And I'm not sure he's got one in him."

The anxiety inside Bush's Miami headquarters was running high Friday afternoon, as staffers met with their bosses to discuss possible reassignments. As local reporters and photographers gathered outside the building, staffers were encouraged not to speak to the press when leaving and to remove their ID badges before walking out.

It started Friday morning with a conference call as top campaign officials informed the staff of major changes and a shift of resources to ballot access and voter contact.

"There's going to be some news today," campaign manager Danny Diaz told staff as the call began.



Staffers were told that job functions would change for some. During follow-up staff meetings with division directors, senior adviser Sally Bradshaw and Diaz, staffers were given the option of transferring to jobs in the early-voting states and allowed a few days to decide, according to campaign spokesman Tim Miller.

After months of insisting that no one state is of critical importance to what was billed as a national campaign, it's clear that New Hampshire is increasingly Bush's top priority. In a memo sent to staff and shared with reporters, Diaz outlined a plan for the next several months.

"We will use the campaign's biggest asset—Jeb Bush—and put him in front of as many voters as possible," the memo states.

The moves to rein in spending are in large part an effort to placate donors nervous about the campaign's burn rate, which, at 86 percent last quarter, is the highest of all the Republican presidential candidates with the exception of Donald Trump.

Of all the GOP presidential candidates, Bush and the committee backing him have spent the most on early state ads ($9.8 million), consulting services ($2 million), charter-air service ($922,000), and payroll ($1.7 million) on the biggest staff (134) — at least one of whom was on pace to earn about $300,000 annually.

"It's not like you need to be Nostradamus to see this coming," said one Florida-based donor who has maxed out to Bush's campaign and believes Friday's restructuring is overdue. "It's tough to believe what they say. Their message is 'Everything is great!' Until it's not. 'Just wait, it's going to get better,' isn't a message. It's an excuse."

Top advisers David Kochel, along with Bradshaw and Diaz, had already taken significant pay cuts earlier this summer; and the campaign has sought to minimize its travel expenses of late. But after last week's FEC report, donors demanded major changes, not just belt-tightening around the margins.

Beyond appeasing donors, the restructuring will enable the campaign to prioritize voter contact; although Bush has been campaigning harder and more often than a number of his rivals. Despite those efforts, he has struggled to connect with an electorate looking for a more charismatic GOP standard-bearer and less than thrilled about the prospect of putting a third Bush in the White House.

Internal polling from a number of rival GOP campaigns mirrors public surveys all showing that Bush, despite his near constant campaign schedule, is struggling mightily to connect with rank and file voters.

"Yes. This looks bad. But it had to be done," said one long-time Bush consultant. "And really, this is the time they had to start staffing the early states. But they couldn't increase the staff. The couldn't increase the burn rate. They couldn't increase the burn. So they're transferring people or jobs — because there could be layoffs — to the early states."

Among establishment donors, Bush has fought hard to stave off Rubio, whose superior abilities on the stump and comparatively lean campaign operation have impressed kingmakers like Sheldon Adelson and others.

Another Bush donor, the CEO of a large financial firm, said the campaign is in fact scared of Rubio and rightly so.

“Marco is a very real and very dangerous candidate in this race,” the donor said.

Marc Caputo and Ben White contributed to this story.

