South Carolina primary: Jeb Bush slumps in polls for Republican nomination as voters look for something different

His bid to be the next president of the United States – and extend the dynasty that bears his name – in clear and present danger, Jeb Bush stood before a group of supporters in Columbia, South Carolina, and asked them to consider: “Can you imagine Donald Trump in the Oval Office?”

If it was not a rhetorical question – polls are pointing to blow-out win for the billionaire businessman in the Republican primary in South Carolina on Saturday, suggesting that yes, voters, if not the ones he was addressing, can imagine and in fact yearn for a Trump White House – it was an expression of frustration. “The way he behaves,” he went on, “shouting profanities, insulting women, Hispanics...”

Mr Bush is dashing around this state pleading with voters to take their eyes off his rivals, one in particular, and recognise his record and his experience as the former two-term Governor of Florida. As he does it he wears the demeanour of a man who can’t quite believe what is happening to him.

“This is a fun journey, but it gets arduous from time to time,” he said, at one of several town hall meetings on his schedule before polling stations open. He may not, however, have lost his sense of humour. Asked by a child to name his favourite book, he didn’t blink: “The Art of the Deal,” he said. She may have been the only person in the room unaware who wrote that bestseller. You know who.

Mr Bush has been at the receiving end of Mr Trump’s most brutish jibes, not least for bringing his mother, Barbara Bush, and his brother, former President George W Bush, on the stump. Mr Trump need only utter “Jeb” at his rallies to elicit giggles. The Governor has tried to set himself apart by returning fire more directly than his rivals, who have remained fearful of alienating the billionaire’s supporters.

Yet in recent days he has been taken to task for it by some of his own. One man stood here and offered that Mr Bush turning on Mr Trump at every televised debate was getting tiresome. “We all expect it, it’s going to happen,” the man said. “Are you scared of Donald Trump? Something’s up.”

“But for me, who?” Mr Bush asked. “Who is going to take him on if I don’t? He has hijacked our party.” Mr Bush singled out the suggestion from Mr Trump that Senator John McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam was no hero, because he got “caught”. The Arizona senator and past presidential candidate “is a verifiable American hero”, he said. “No one should say that.”

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The large numbers of former and serving military personnel in South Carolina should make it fertile ground for Mr Bush. At every event he stresses that years running Florida equipped him better than his rivals to be commander-in-chief. And history offers favourable runes too. His brother and his father, George HW Bush won primaries in the state on their roads to the White House.

But as Mr Bush struggles alongside two other candidates – Ohio Governor John Kasich and Senator Marco Rubio – to break out as the viable alternative to either Mr Trump or Texas Senator Ted Cruz, he suffered a grave setback this week when the popular South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley, abruptly endorsed Mr Rubio, two days after George W Bush had personally lobbied her to choose his brother.

There have been signs of haplessness in the Bush campaign. This week, he traded his spectacles for contacts – and a bit a squint – and then drew social media scorn after he tweeted a picture of a hand-gun with his name engraved on it with the single word, “America”. The British comic James Corden asked on his nightly US talk show: “Anyone else worried Jeb got rid of his glasses the same week he got a gun?” It didn’t help that the gun was made in Belgium.

While Mr Bush has money to carry on, his supporters – and his donors – will expect him to place in the top three on Saturday. But polls show him barely in double digits with Mr Trump holding a commanding lead and a struggle for second place under way between Senator Ted Cruz and Mr Rubio.

Betty Richbourg, 68, a retired special needs teacher in Columbia, the state capital, also argued that Mr Bush has spent too much time deflecting Mr Trump’s insults and not enough time attacking him on substance. “This shouldn’t be about bad-mouthing but about the issues and I think Mr Trump has plenty of issues,” she said, a fresh white Jeb! T-shirt folded on her lap.

Sitting beside her, Jane Anker, also retired, said she never imagined Mr Bush, whom she refuses to abandon, would be faring so poorly, expressing profound disappointment in the Trump phenomenon. “I can’t imagine that so many people who are supposedly intelligent see him as someone who could lead this country,” she sighed. As for Mr Cruz, he is “almost as bad,” she offered.

If the writing is indeed on the wall for Mr Bush then maybe it’s time for humour of a more mordant kind. It was provided by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, tasked with introducing the Governor. “Our No 1 candidate is crazy, but otherwise we are doing just fine,” he said.