Do you really think ads will work? Bush's Super PAC already ran some anti-Trump ads. I have three reasons why it own't work:
A) The attacks have already been done. Trump is a known quantity. We've seen that people make excuses for him when they hear these attacks.
B) Mysterious super PACs and the Republican Party launching attacks against Trump will just make his supporters defensive and angry against the establishment. It will increase activity.
C) If you've ever read Influence by Robert Cialdini, you may remember the doomsday cult story. The basic idea is that when people put a lot of passionate effort into something and then are shown definitively that they're wrong, they'll pour themselves into it even more, because they need reinvestment and affirmation that they are in fact correct. Social support is one major part of that re-affirmation, which Trump can provide in spades since he's the most popular candidate and has the most active supporters.
A. People always say that. “Negative ads against Candidate X aren’t going to work because Y.” They usually do work though. Even on candidates who are well known.
B. Hardly any ordinary voters pay any attention to who is responsible for a given ad. The Super PAC could be called “Responsible Citizens for a Better Tomorrow” or something. Who the heck is going to know (or care) what that group is?
C. “The most popular candidate and has the most active supporters.” I realize that he’s leading in the polls, but how much of the support for
any of the Republican candidates right now is “passionate”? Voter loyalty to any particular candidate in a primary, at this very early stage, tends to be very weak.
We know this because
basically every single modern day presidential primary campaign has seen the polls shift dramatically at one point or another. “How can Howard Dean lose? He’s winning in every state and he's got all that passionate support!” Oops.
Or how about 2012? Santorum was at about 4% in Iowa polls four years ago, and he ended up winning the state. “But this time is different because X, Y, an Z.” That’s what people always say.