Crowds noncommittal in waning days of Bush's Iowa campaign

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — George H.W. Bush famously started his first Iowa caucus campaign as an asterisk in the polls before going on to win the 1980 contest.

In 2016, his son appears poised to do the opposite.

Jeb Bush said at the outset of this campaign that he intended to win Iowa, but the final Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll places him tied for seventh in the 11-candidate field with support from 2% of likely caucusgoers.

That is, asterisk territory.

Saturday was the second day of a three-day, 11-stop tour for Bush, taking him across the state’s northern tier from Okoboji to Dubuque. Still, although that represents Bush’s most frenzied road trip of the campaign season, it’s a substantially lighter schedule than other candidates are pursuing in this final weekend — and it’ll barely last into caucus day.

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

Bush is scheduled to hold one midday event at a media-hub hotel in downtown Des Moines on Monday before jetting to New Hampshire, where he’ll hold a town hall meeting just as the caucuses here are coming to order.

Despite more than $100 million in financial support and an Iowa political network dating back to his father’s campaigns of the 1980s, Bush never caught on here after declaring his candidacy.

“It's my intention to win, period,” Bush said during a press conference in Iowa City on May 16. “I'm a competitive person. My hope is to win any place where I'm competing.”

Since then, however, his polling numbers have steadily declined as Scott Walker, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and, especially, Donald Trump took turns leading the polls. In recent days, rival Marco Rubio has been seen as on the rise.

Family at the forefront as Bush campaigns in Iowa

Even among the self-selected sample of would-be caucusgoers who turned out for Bush’s final events of this caucus season, many were largely noncommittal about supporting him.

Larry Schroeder, a retiree who attended Bush’s noon-hour event in Clear Lake on Saturday, said he was impressed but remained “up in the air” on who to support. Clear Lake Mayor Nelson Crabb offered a similar view. He attended the Bush event but said he planned to stop by a Chris Christie even later that evening.

Deb Manske, a retired schoolteacher from Algona who attended the Clear Lake event, offered a string of superlatives for Bush, variously calling him serious, genuine, caring, honest and intelligent.

“He wants to help people. That’s what you want in a president,” Manske said.

But for all that, she wasn’t ready to commit.

“I’m still kind of undecided,” she said. “I’m definitely glad I came to see him and hear what he had to say because he did impress me.”