Ahead of and with the
release of the quarterly campaign fundraising totals, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio are jostling for the top spot among establishment candidates. Rubio has jumped to the fourth spot (below Trump, Carson, and Cruz), and Jeb, once considered an "
unstoppable juggernaut," has slipped into single digits and is
slashing campaign staff salaries.
Brett LoGiurato reports:
A long-simmering feud between two Florida Republican presidential heavyweights has erupted out into the open over the past day, prompted in part by the release of federal campaign-finance disclosures.
The campaigns of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) publicly traded barbs Thursday over the reports, each trying to outdo the other over which campaign was thriftier and in better position going forward.
Both are from Florida and both are counting on the same donors and the same support, so the competition is fierce as
Florida voters' shift from Jeb to Rubio. This gets even more dicey because
Rubio was Jeb's protégé, and apparently, Trump isn't the only one who sees him as "
disloyal" in attempting to further his own presidential ambitions in a race that many thought Jeb would win handily.