MANCHESTER, N.H.—Republican Jeb Bush is charging back into early-voting states with a can-do message aimed at winning over primary voters and reassuring anxious donors.
The former Florida governor, who has struggled to stand out in televised debates and whose campaign for president has cut costs, headlined events in South Carolina and New Hampshire on Tuesday with a renewed sense of urgency.
“A president can’t say ‘you’re fired’ and go to commercial break,” Bush told more than 100 people at a senior center in Raymond, New Hampshire. “A president has to roll up their damn sleeves and get to work.”
The jab was aimed at billionaire reality-television star Donald Trump, who rates higher than Bush in polls.
Bush, who has sunk to single digits in early-voting state polls, is spending more concentrated time this month in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the first three states to hold nominating contests next year.
The revised approach is a pivot from what aides had said was Bush’s readiness for the long haul into next year’s state-by-state campaign for the nomination.
