The imminent end of the Bush political dynasty

Today, the standard bearer of the Bush family political legacy in the Lone Star State, Land Commissioner George P. Bush (George H.W. Bush’s grandson and George W. Bush’s nephew), is on track to lose in a landslide to embattled Attorney General Ken Paxton in the May 24 Republican primary runoff for attorney general. A late March Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation (TxHPF) survey projects Bush will receive only between a fifth and a third of the GOP primary vote in May.

The Bush name, once an asset within the Texas GOP electorate, is now a liability. As an example, take the two-fifths of Republican primary voters who in the March TxHPF survey adamantly said they would never under any circumstance vote for George P. Bush. When asked why, two-thirds of these Republicans said it is because he is a member of the Bush family.

Today, the favorites of the most reliable Texas GOP primary voters are named Trump, Cruz and Abbott, not Bush. In the TxHPF survey, nine out of 10 (90 percent) of these Texas Republican primary voters have a favorable opinion of former President Donald Trump (70 percent have a very favorable opinion), 89 percent a favorable opinion of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (54 percent very favorable) and 88 percent a favorable opinion of Sen. Ted Cruz (65 percent very favorable).