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Jeb Bush was left grasping for a response when a student challenged him during a meeting by declaring: "Your brother created Isis". Mr Bush, the former governor of Florida and sibling of George W. Bush, was wrapping up a town-hall style discussion when Ivy Ziedrich, a 19-year-old student at the University of Nevada, commanded his attention by asking him to take a student question. Her question revolved around a claim he made earlier in the meeting that America's retreat from the Middle East under the Obama administration was in part responsible for the rapid rise of the Isis terror group....

Jeb Bush’s decision to forego this summer’s Iowa Straw Poll has roiled many conservatives in the state, but that snub might only be the beginning: According to three sources with knowledge of Bush’s campaign strategy, the likely Republican presidential candidate does not plan to seriously contest the first-in-the-nation caucuses — and may ultimately skip the state altogether. Tim Miller, a spokesman for Bush, strongly denied that the candidate planned to write off Iowa, and suggested those who say otherwise are merely speculating. “There is nobody with any shred of authority or proximity to Gov. Bush suggesting that, should he decide...

Warning signs abound, and the former Florida governor with the famous name hasn't even announced his Oval Office intentions. Like many candidates before him, Jeb Bush has rendered early polling in the 2016 presidential race pointless. "The polls are totally irrelevant," he told Fox News' Megyn Kelly this week. "Everyone needs to take a chill pill on the polls until it gets closer." But regardless of their ultimate predictive value, a reading of voters' early preferences and impressions still provides a snapshot of the bumpy road the son of one former president and the brother of another faces to the...

Ben Carson has surged into the top tier of GOP presidential candidates in a Fox News poll released Thursday, tying former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for the No. 1 slot. The poll shows Carson and Bush in the lead with 13 percent support each. That’s a 7 percentage-point jump for Carson, who was tied for sixth place in the same poll in April. Carson’s jump comes on the heels of his presidential announcement two weeks ago in Detroit. His campaign immediately sought to fundraise off the poll, boasting of the more than 100,000 donations it has collected in recent weeks....

Jeb Bush said in an interview that he would not immediately move to repeal President Obama’s executive order on immigration — suggesting he would instead wait for a new law to be passed addressing the matter. In an interview with Megyn Kelly that is to be shown Monday night on Fox News, Mr. Bush said that rather than overturning the order, he believed in “passing meaningful reform of immigration and make it part of it.” The president’s executive order seeks to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation. Most presidential candidates in the Republican field either oppose Mr. Obama’s order...

Jeb Bush is putting in motion an ambitious plan to develop a super PAC that would be unprecedented in its size and scope — a blueprint growing in scale and intensity as he nears the formal launch of his presidential campaign. The group, called Right to Rise, is said to be on track for raising an historic $100 million by the end of May, and its budget is expected to dwarf that of Bush’s official campaign many times over. In interviews, more than half a dozen sources familiar with the Right to Rise plans described a juggernaut that was rapidly...

Former Florida governor fails to identify any ‘genuine’ conservatives on campaign team. Jeb Bush’s latest effort to court evangelical voters boomeranged when a Christian radio network boss challenged him for hiring two political aides who support same-sex marriage, and the former Florida governor conceded that he couldn’t identify any “genuine” conservatives in his inner circle. The details of Mr. Bush’s private phone call in mid-April with Rich Bott, whose religious radio network of 100 stations stretches from California to Tennessee within potential reach of 51 million listeners, were confirmed to The Washington Times by Mr. Bott and top aides to...

Columba Bush, the famously private wife of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, appears to be taking on an increasingly prominent role in her husband’s nascent presidential campaign. Later this month, Mrs. Bush will headline a fundraiser for her husband’s leadership PAC, Right to Rise, in Miami. This week, she attended a retreat for Mr. Bush’s donors at an oceanfront luxury hotel in Miami Beach, where she gave a heartfelt speech about her husband, according to those present. Her name has also been popping up with increasing frequency in fundraising emails — last week she asked supporters to “join with my...

Javier Palomarez, president of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, recently said he believes any new U.S. president will only be elected to office if he or she openly courts Latino voters. He was speaking to Sen. Ted Cruz, who is of Cuba descent, during a question-and-answer session in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. But it’s something that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush seems to have taken to heart. Bush, who has yet to announce he will seek the Republican presidential nomination, has been actively courting the Hispanic community. It doesn’t seem to matter to the former Florida governor that Hispanic...

Jeb Bush says he doesn’t want a “coronation,” and New Hampshire voters are making sure he gets his wish. Facing an audience of skeptical activists at a pivotal GOP gathering, the former Florida governor tried to assure voters he’s a real conservative in a somewhat rocky return to the campaign trail here. “My record’s a conservative record,” Bush said in response to a question at a nationally watched gathering of GOP activists attended by nearly all of the party’s presidential hopefuls. “It’s not a Republican-in-name-only record. ... It’s an ‘I’m not kidding’ conservative one.” Bush had just finished his stump...

This was ugly. On his MSNBC show this evening, Chris Matthews criticized Jeb Bush, who will be speaking at Liberty University, for "stooping" to "that evangelical crowd" Let's play some political madlibs and imagine that instead of "stooping to that evangelical crowd," Matthews had criticized a candidate who spoke at an Islamic center for "stooping to that Muslim crowd." Cue the cries of religious bigotry! View the video here.

A new poll suggests more Republicans don’t want to see Jeb Bush as the Republican presidential nominee than those that do.According to a Suffolk University/USA Today poll, Bush was the GOP contender that received the most disapproval, followed by former Sen. Rick Santorum and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal who both had zero favorability shown in the poll.

Mr. Bush, a former Florida governor and likely presidential candidate, was born in Texas and hails from one of America’s most prominent political dynasties. But on at least one occasion, it appears he got carried away with his appeal to Spanish-speaking voters and claimed he actually was Hispanic. In a 2009 voter-registration application, obtained from the Miami-Dade County Elections Department, Mr. Bush marked Hispanic in the field labeled “race/ethnicity.” A Bush spokeswoman could offer no explanation for the characterization.

A group of conservatives and libertarians in New Hampshire have come up with a plan they hope will block former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) from becoming the Republican party’s nominee for President. The idea is to hold their own presidential caucus in October and select a candidate behind whom they would all unite. The group is called the “603 Alliance,” named after the only area code in New Hampshire. According to a report by Politico, the plan was instigated by “years of simmering discontent within the state Republican party,” as conservative, libertarian, and Tea Party activists have grown increasingly frustrated...

Anti-discrimination activists and gay rights groups welcomed a lightning evolution by Jeb Bush, this week on a controversial law passed in Indiana last week that opponents said would have made it easier for businesses to discriminate against LGBT employees and customers. On Monday, Bush praised the law as signed by Indiana’s governor, Mike Pence. On Wednesday, the former Florida governor and likely 2016 presidential candidate drew back sharply in his approbation, conceding only that the law would “be in the right place” by the end of the week, after an anticipated fix by the Indiana legislature. Bush’s original remarks were...

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush now leads the field of Republican candidates for the party’s 2016 presidential nomination, but former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton enjoys a decided advantage over Bush and other potential GOP rivals in hypothetical general election matchups, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. At this early stage in the 2016 competition, the prospective candidates suffer from image weaknesses, but the Republicans have a more acute problem. Most Republicans are not well known, but at this point, not a single one of six Republicans included in the survey has a favorability rating that is...

A former staffer to Jeb Bush established a group earlier this year that can raise money without disclosing its donors, a revelation that has drawn criticism from campaign-finance watchdogs who say the group will allow the likely 2016 candidate to benefit from contributions his campaign might prefer not to disclose. The nonprofit corporation—called Right to Rise Policy Solutions, sharing the same “Right to Rise” name as two other political-action committees raising money for Mr. Bush’s potential campaign—is the latest addition to a group of politically linked organizations not required to disclose their donors. Other potential 2016 candidates, including Louisiana Gov....

It doesn’t matter what the Republican base wants or whom the well-known pundits like. The fact is, the so-called “independent” voters of New Hampshire are likely to pick the next Republican nominee for US President. Since 1968 there have been only two times—1996 and 2000—when the New Hampshire Republican primary winner did not eventually become the party’s nominee for President. By contrast, the Iowa Caucuses’ winner has gone on to the nomination only six times in the last ten election cycles and Iowa did not choose the winning nominee the last two elections. Somehow, winning the New Hampshire primary thrusts...

On a sunny Saturday morning in early March, Bob Vander Plaats walked into the West Des Moines Marriott with a chip on his shoulder. Iowa's evangelical shot-caller had come to meet with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who was in town for the Iowa Ag Summit, a cattle call that drew the majority of Republican presidential hopefuls. Over the course of the weekend, Vander Plaats had sit-downs scheduled with just about all of them. But not Jeb Bush. A twice-failed gubernatorial candidate who helped boost Mike Huckabee to victory in the 2008 caucuses, Vander Plaats has grown accustomed to presidential aspirants...

Fearing that Republicans will ultimately nominate an establishment presidential candidate like Jeb Bush, leaders of the nation’s Christian right have mounted an ambitious effort to coalesce their support behind a single social-conservative contender months before the first primary votes are cast. In secret straw polls and exclusive meetings from Iowa to California, the leaders are weighing the relative appeal and liabilities of potential standard-bearers like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and former Govs. Rick Perry of Texas and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. “There’s a shared desire to come behind a candidate,” said Tony Perkins, the...