If Republican President Was Jeb Bush would he be a popular president right now?

[Donald Trump’s Toupée]

Keeping everything else constant -

Tax Cuts, N. Korean Summit, Putin Meeting, Gorsuch & Kavanaugh, 3.7% Unemployment, ISIS Decimated, America First Foreign Policy, Withdrawn from Iran Nuclear Deal, Repealed Obamacare Mandate, etc. -

would an "establishment" Republican President in the mould of a Jeb Bush, be a popular president right now? (Popular defined as approval rating 55%+).

How much is Trump's low-ish numbers part of Trump's poor personality? And/Or the hyper-partisan era we now live in (remembering that Obama was sub-50% for the majority of his presidency, as well)?

[KingSweden]

Idk about 55+ but I think 50+ for sure

[Progressive Pessimist]

He would be more popular than Trump for sure, but he is still a Bush and would probably float around 42-48% positive approvals. They would probably be similar to what Clinton's approvals would be.

[Famous Mortimer]

The economy would be much worse because of 20 million illegal immigrants amnestied and even bigger tax cuts to Amazon. So he would probably be much less popular. Where his brother was before 9/11.

Opposition to him, however, would be much more muted, as the media would not be attacking him constantly. There would be more genuine efforts at balance.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

He would've lost to Clinton.  He's a Bush and a soft one. His approval ratings if somehow he pulled off that miracle would be right around Trump's nationally and much lower in his party.

[Indy Texas]

These are pointless counterfactuals because Jeb! could not be elected to begin with.

There is no popular electoral majority for the Republicans' plutocratic economic policies. The only way they can win with that platform is to cover it with a thick layer of racism and culture war grievance-mongering.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Jeb! doesn't have the ability to drive down others' negatives like Trump does.

[Koharu]

He would be more popular than Trump for sure, but he is still a Bush and would probably float around 42-48% positive approvals. They would probably be similar to what Clinton's approvals would be.

[IceSpear]

There is no popular electoral majority for the Republicans' plutocratic economic policies. The only way they can win with that platform is to cover it with a thick layer of racism and culture war grievance-mongering.

[twenty42]

No. He is a Republican and would therefore be the devil incarnate in the eyes of minorities, millennials, and the MSM. The left's temporary tolerance of old school Republicans in the Trump era doesn't fool me for a minute.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

If anything, he'd be even lower in approvals than Donald.

[Stranger in a strange land]

If he somehow had gotten elected (doubtful considering how low energy he was, but possible against Hillary), his approvals would be about where Trump's are.

[HillGoose]

Hell yeah brah everyone would love Jeb!

[HillGoose]

The economy would be much worse because of 20 million illegal immigrants amnestied and even bigger tax cuts to Amazon. So he would probably be much less popular. Where his brother was before 9/11.

Opposition to him, however, would be much more muted, as the media would not be attacking him constantly. There would be more genuine efforts at balance.

Do you hate the free market?

[RINO Tom]

These are pointless counterfactuals because Jeb! could not be elected to begin with.

There is no popular electoral majority for the Republicans' plutocratic economic policies. The only way they can win with that platform is to cover it with a thick layer of racism and culture war grievance-mongering.

I think there are plenty of examples of the GOP winning elections in the past running on (what Democrats allege are) "plutocratic economic policies" while not being anymore "racist" than the Democratic nominee.  So, even if that is how they are getting a majority NOW, I don't think that is the only formula to win with right-of-center economic goals...

[Cold War Liberal]

Jeb(!) couldn't win a Republican primary so I highly doubt he could have won the election. If he did his approvals would probably be around 45%.

Interesting hypothetical tangent: I may have said this before, but it's interesting to think that we could have hypothetically had President (GHW) Bush followed by President Clinton followed by President (W) Bush followed by President Clinton followed by President (Jeb!) Bush.

The economy would be much worse because of 20 million illegal immigrants amnestied and even bigger tax cuts to Amazon. So he would probably be much less popular. Where his brother was before 9/11.

Opposition to him, however, would be much more muted, as the media would not be attacking him constantly. There would be more genuine efforts at balance.

Do you hate the free market?

It is long established that he believes the free market is only for white "native born" Americans.

[dw93]

I doubt Jeb would win because I still maintain Rubio and Kasich (especially the later) were the only Republicans that ran in 2016 that  could win the nomination and at the same time win the general.

That said, if Jeb! did pull it off, he at best would be between like 45 and 48%, which is where I think Hillary's would be had she won. Democrats would be launching the same attacks against him that they did against Romney and currently are launching against Trump while Conservative Talk Radio would be bashing him for, you guessed it, "not being a true CONservative." A clean DACA bill or an outright Immigration reform bill would do to him with his base what "Read My Lips No New Taxes" did to his father and his foreign policy would likely resemble his brother's.

[Yank2133]

These are pointless counterfactuals because Jeb! could not be elected to begin with.

There is no popular electoral majority for the Republicans' plutocratic economic policies. The only way they can win with that platform is to cover it with a thick layer of racism and culture war grievance-mongering.

This.

People don't realize how unpopular Bush-era GOP policies are. If they were popular, Trump would have never won the nomination. Trump didn't run on Bush era policies, he ran on white resentment and adopted some popular Democratic policies preferences like not cutting SS and Medicare.

[mvd10]

He'd probably be somewhat higher but since Bush is a rather uninspiring person with a loaded last name I'm sure 90% of Democrats and 20% of Republican-leaners would find a reason to not like him. I don't really see how Bush would be lower than Trump though. Polarization has massively increased and at this stage any president would get 40-45% of the electorate to approve of him/her, barring exceptional circumstances. The people who love Trump the most aren't distressed Obama-Trump voters in Midwestern industrial towns anyway, it's extremely religious rural/exurban voters who have been Republicans since forever. And they definitely would have found a way to love Bush if he were the nominee. Bush would compensate atleast some of the support he loses with the WWC (and face it, most of them were Republican long before Trump) with college-educated voters who don't like Trump. EC-wise it would be a bad trade-off, but we're not talking about the EC right here .

I'm not sure whether Bush would have won the general though. Tbh I'd give Rubio a better chance, atleast he'd be somewhat effective at attacking Clinton. Then again, let's not forget that we're talking about the GOP. They loathe Clinton and even if Bush wouldn't run a Trumpist campaign he'd still have his attack dogs and shady PACs doing the dirty work (the Bushes are no saints lol), and I imagine the SC stuff wouldn't be butterflied away by a Bush victory. Maybe it wouldn't have been enough, but I'm sure he can atleast convince enough conservatives to make it a close race. Hillary Clinton isn't as good of a campaigner as Obama anyway, and how many Trump voters wouldn't have voted against Hillary in the end? They hated her long before Trump came along.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

The economy would be much worse because of 20 million illegal immigrants amnestied and even bigger tax cuts to Amazon. So he would probably be much less popular. Where his brother was before 9/11.

Opposition to him, however, would be much more muted, as the media would not be attacking him constantly. There would be more genuine efforts at balance.

This.

[ProudModerate2]

Are you kidding.
Anyone, except for Hitler (and even here there could be some possibility) would be more popular.

[mvd10]

The economy would be much worse because of 20 million illegal immigrants amnestied and even bigger tax cuts to Amazon. So he would probably be much less popular. Where his brother was before 9/11.

Opposition to him, however, would be much more muted, as the media would not be attacking him constantly. There would be more genuine efforts at balance.

This.

Ehm, wasn't GWB at roughly 50% before 9/11? I wouldn't call that ''much less popular'' than Trump .

[HillGoose]

The economy would be much worse because of 20 million illegal immigrants amnestied and even bigger tax cuts to Amazon. So he would probably be much less popular. Where his brother was before 9/11.

Opposition to him, however, would be much more muted, as the media would not be attacking him constantly. There would be more genuine efforts at balance.

This.

Do you think the free market should be suppressed as well? Why do you hate economic freedom?

[libertpaulian]

Slightly higher than Trump; however, Democrats wouldn't be enjoying the level of momentum that they do right now because Jeb! would be a largely uncontroversial President.