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MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. — Jeb Bush is looking for a fight in South Carolina.

Mr. Bush, the former governor of Florida, attacked Donald J. Trump insistently and unprompted in a town-hall-style meeting here on Wednesday, a day after the real estate developer handily won the New Hampshire primary.

Mr. Bush has often gone after Mr. Trump on the campaign trail, but his comments here reached a new level of intensity. He cast Mr. Trump as a brute and a bigot, a panderer on the issue of abortion and a political hijacker who could destroy the Republican Party.

Under Mr. Trump, Mr. Bush said, the country would be “worse off than we are now, and we’re really bad off right now.”

“Our party is being hijacked by people who do not believe in the goodness of the conservative cause,” Mr. Bush said. “I do. I believe it.”

Mr. Bush, who has looked to South Carolina as a state that could vault him into a more direct, head-to-head showdown with Mr. Trump, returned to his attacks again and again in an hourlong appearance before a packed room overlooking the waterfront here.

Some of his standard digs may have sharper resonance in South Carolina: Echoing a frequent line of criticism, Mr. Bush rebuked Mr. Trump for having belittled the Vietnam War service of John McCain, the Arizona senator who won the South Carolina primary in 2008 on his way to capturing the nomination.

“John McCain’s a hero,” Mr. Bush said Wednesday, to applause from the crowd. “Everybody knows that.”

When a voter challenged Mr. Bush about his own views on abortion, he outlined his record on the issue in Florida and drew a contrast with Mr. Trump, who, he noted, had voiced approval of late-term abortions in a 1999 television interview.

“So, let’s wipe him off the map here,” Mr. Bush said. “He’s not only a Johnny-come-lately. He’s just saying what people – what he’s been told to say to appeal to conservatives.”

And in describing his views on accepting refugees from the Middle East, Mr. Bush said he had faced backlash for suggesting Christian refugees should receive special consideration. That view, Mr. Bush said, was both legal and appropriate, but his critics pounced anyway.

“You would have thought that I was like Donald Trump,” Mr. Bush said. “You know, being a bigot or something.”

Mr. Trump was not the sole recipient of Mr. Bush’s barbs. Without mentioning Senator Marco Rubio by name, Mr. Bush stressed the importance of electing a tested leader, not a “gifted politician that could give the most phenomenal speech,” but who lacked deep governing experience.

And prompted by a voter to distinguish himself from Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, Mr. Bush said his economic record in Florida was superior and chided Mr. Kasich for having expanded Medicaid in Ohio under the Affordable Care Act.

“He led the charge to expand Medicaid, and is quite proud of it,” Mr. Bush said. “I wouldn’t be proud of that, to be honest with you.”

Unlike with Mr. Trump, Mr. Bush softened his critique of Mr. Kasich with an expression of admiration.

“He’s clearly a person that believes that we can solve problems, and he’s concerned about those that have been left behind,” Mr. Bush said, “and so am I.”