Once Bush announced that he was going ot try and win the nomination without the “base”, he was done.
Bush thought because he was ‘Hispanic friendly’ and had a Mexican wife he would pull in all the Hispanic voters along with establishment voters. If that had worked he wouldn’t have needed the base. He didn’t factor in that Hispanics are almost all die hard Democrats because he and the rest of the establishment Republicans think if they pander enough they’ll get their votes. They’re stupid.