Bush family ties give generously
Network brings in about half of Jeb’s $120M haul
WASHINGTON — Jeb Bush’s fundraising network is two generations in the making, and it shows.
About half of the roughly $120 million raised to help him win the Republican presidential nomination comes from donors who previously gave to his brother or father, both former presidents, according to a new analysis of Federal Election Commission records by Crowdpac. com, a nonpartisan political research company.
The finding puts a numerical exclamation point on the advantage Bush’s presidential family gives him when it comes to fundraising.
In Crowdpac’s review of named contributors to three political committees helping Bush, $59.2 million came from first-time Bush donors, while $60.3 million came from returning donors to the earlier campaigns of President George W. Bush, President George H.W. Bush or both.
There are more than 1,800 men and women who have given to all three Bushes over the years, Crowdpac found. These loyalists are spread across the country, with a heavy concentration in Texas, where the two presidents began their political careers, and in Florida, where Jeb Bush served as governor.
One such Bush family stalwart is Dirk Van Dongen, president of the Washington-based National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors. Van Dongen said he is one of a “huge” network of volunteer fundraisers — called “bundlers” because they gather checks from friends and associates to turn over to campaigns — who sprang to action when Jeb Bush said at the beginning of the year that he was thinking about running.
“It is a vast network built over decades and it has grown even larger since Gov. Bush announced his candidacy,” he said. “No other Republican candidate comes close to matching it.”