FIRST ON BUZZ: Pro-Jeb Bush PAC starts airing SC ads next week
A political-action committee supporting 2016 Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush will debut television ads in South Carolina next Tuesday.
Right to Rise will spend $3.9 million on ads through Dec. 28 in the state with the South’s first presidential primary.
The pro-Bush ads are the first sustained media campaign of the 2016 political season on S.C. airwaves.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican also seeking the presidential nomination, ran a TV ad on Easter.
Later in the fall, political-action committees supporting another pair of Republican candidates, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, will air ads across the state. Rubio’s campaign, as well as the PAC supporting the senator, have booked TV time through the Feb. 20 primary in South Carolina.
The first pro-Bush ad from Right to Rise is supposed to introduce voters to the former Florida governor’s record of growing jobs and cutting taxes — and help him move past being known mainly as the son and brother of two presidents.
“People see his last name and a lot of people like it because they have tremendous respect for the family and their history of public service,” Right to Rise boss Mike Murphy said. “But we talk a lot about the first name because we have to tell about who Jeb is.”
The ads also are running in the two other early-primary states, Iowa and New Hampshire, that send voters to the polls ahead of South Carolina. The total ad buy is about $24 million, Right to Rise officials said.
Bush could use the help.
The one-time fronmt-runner sits in third place in recent national and South Carolina polls behind political newcomers Donald Trump, a New York business mogul, and Ben Carson, a retired Maryland neurosurgeon.
Right to Rise leaders downplayed any concerns about Bush’s struggles in the polls, noting that primaries remain more than five months away. But the ads are meant to show voters that Bush has experience in office that the current GOP front-runners lack.
“Our first campaign is against (poll answers) ‘Don’t know’ or ‘Tell me more,’ ” Murphy said. “Later, I think people will draw contrasts.”
This story was originally published September 14, 2015 at 8:01 PM.