AFTER WEEKS OF JOSTLING for a position in Fox News’ first presidential debate of the 2016 election cycle, the results are in. According to Fox, based on an average of the five most recent national polls, the candidates in the 9:00PM, prime-time debate will be, “real estate magnate Donald Trump; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio; Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Despite trailing Donald Trump in the polls, Jeb Bush should feel confident about his position going into the debate. Discussing the prospect of debating Trump and the other Republican contenders Bush said, “I’m a big boy… I’ll be showing up with my big boy pants on.”
So far Bush has run a very successful financial operation with his dedicated Right to Rise Super PAC raising an enormous $103 million in contributions during the first six months of the year. The Washington Post reports that this also includes “$811,000 from lobbyists and lobby firms.” This accounts for less than 1% of the PAC’s total fundraising, but is still very impressive when one takes into account the strong stance Bush took on lobbying, which Lobby Blog has previously reported on. His suggested industry reforms have not seemed to affect his support among the industry as the Post reports, “Right to Rise brought in $523,325 from lobby firms and $282,850 from 107 lobbyists, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures filed Friday.”
Among Republican candidates Bush received the most amount of support (over three times more) from the lobbying industry followed by Chris Christie and Scott Walker. Christie raised “$219,000 from 42 lobbyists and nine lobby firms” and their affiliated PACs while Scott Walker raised “$102,000 from three lobbyists and firms — $100,000 of which came from Elizabeth Dunn of the consulting and communications firm FTI Consulting, which has a lobbying division.”
Tags: Chris Christie, Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker
