For the higher a part of 4 a long time, a member of the Bush household held workplace someplace within the United States, a run that seemed to end in 2023 when former Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush left workplace.
But Jonathan Bush, running for governor of Maine, hopes to revive the custom.
The nephew of former President George H.W. Bush and cousin of former President George W. Bush is attempting to interrupt by means of a crowded GOP area in Tuesday’s gubernatorial major and put the state in play this fall.
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His household has a lengthy, wealthy historical past in Maine, the place generations have summered, practiced philanthropy, and put down roots. Pictures of Bushes adorn the partitions of companies in Kennebunkport, the seaside city that hosts the household compound; the promontory the place it stands is referred to as “Walker’s Point;” and a main youngsters’s hospital in Portland is named after first woman Barbara Bush.
But in 2026, it’s an open query whether or not the Bush name nonetheless has buy with Republican voters in a celebration remodeled by President Donald Trump. And the governor’s race in Maine is certainly one of a number of 2026 contests testing Americans’ emotions towards political dynasties.
For his half, Bush is confronting the query head-on.
“I’m Jonathan Bush,” he says in an ad. “Now hold on, I know what you’re thinking – not another Bush. I get it. But hear me out: I might be different than what you’re expecting. First, I’m not low energy anything.”
The biting reference to his cousin Jeb Bush’s unsuccessful 2016 presidential marketing campaign, which foundered in opposition to Donald Trump’s anti-establishment mockery, displays the problem dealing with a Bush searching for workplace ten years later.
In an interview with NCS, Bush mentioned the household name “was very much an anchor” within the early days of his marketing campaign.
“Mainers don’t want an insider right now, they’ve got an allergy to somebody who’s part of the system. They feel like the system has betrayed them. So, when they hear the name Bush, they imagine somebody who’s sort of all wired up,” he mentioned.
So Bush, 57, is not running as the keeper of the household legacy. Instead, he’s casting himself as an “an outsider” who desires to disrupt healthcare, training and institution politics, specializing in his non-public sector background in his pitch to voters.
Raised in Manhattan earlier than relocating to Maine as an grownup, Bush stresses that he’s by no means lived in Texas, a household stronghold, nor labored in Washington, DC.
The father of seven launched his marketing campaign in Belfast, a midcoast city the place Athenahealth, the healthcare know-how firm he co-founded in 1997, as soon as employed greater than 900 folks, and highlights he and his spouse’s deep household histories within the Pine Tree State.
Bush argues that his private story and his message, calling for a “shakeup” in Augusta’s present Democratic administration, is resonating with voters. And polling has proven some momentum for Bush within the race’s closing stretch as he’s ramped up promoting; a survey from the University of New Hampshire in May discovered him climbing into second place, though nonetheless considerably behind frontrunner Bobby Charles.
But he’s additionally contending with a Republican Party that has consolidated round Trump’s Make America Great Again motion almost 20 years after President George W. Bush, and his extra conventional model of GOP institution politics, left workplace.
Over that point, the Bush household has discovered itself more and more at odds with Trump and that motion. Trump’s early forays into politics included sharp criticism of former President George W. Bush and the Iraq War; bitter clashes with Jeb Bush within the 2016 presidential major hardened the emotions; and Billy Bush, Jonathan Bush’s youthful brother, figured prominently within the “Access Hollywood” scandal that almost undid Trump’s first presidential bid.
By 2022, cousin George P. Bush’s unsuccessful marketing campaign for Texas legal professional common encapsulated the shifting panorama, as he was snubbed for Trump’s endorsement regardless of solicitous appeals to his base.
Mark Brewer, a political science professor on the University of Maine, advised that Bush is in “a tough spot.”
“I mean, you’re not only a Bush, which obviously he is,” he mentioned. “Most people may think of Bush and its place within the Republican Party. It’s more of the kind of typical establishment wing of the Republican Party, which is right now very much out of favor.”
While he famous that some extra conventional Republicans in Maine, like Sen. Susan Collins, have held on within the Trump period, Brewer mentioned the Bush name was prone to be extra of an anchor than profit within the major.
Phil Harriman, a former Republican state senator and conservative commentator, mentioned he thought it’s been to Bush’s profit to handle his roots, and the place he differs from his household.
“He came across initially as the Energizer Bunny, or a jackrabbit, he was on the go all the time. And I think at first he may have kind of off-put some voters ” he mentioned. “And then he started reintroducing himself, taking the family name head-on, and then began to separate himself, knock on what makes him unique.”
In characterizating himself as an outsider, Harriman sees Bush’s perspective as “I’m not in Augusta, as opposed to, I’m new to politics. If you’re a Bush, you’re not new to politics.”
The newest Bush on the poll is additionally not the one one with model name recognition running this cycle — in Maine and throughout the nation.
Two Democratic gubernatorial candidates’ dad and mom are present Maine officeholders – Hannah Pingree, the daughter of US Rep. Chellie Pingree, and Angus King III, the son of impartial US Sen. Angus King. The scion of one other well-known household, Jack Schlossberg – grandson of President John F. Kennedy – is running for Congress in New York’s twelfth Congressional District.
“People sort of talk about Bushes like they’re Kennedys, and there’s a master plan. There’s no master plan, there’s no ranking committee, you know,” Bush mentioned. “It’s a group of people that have had an extraordinary series of lightning bolts in terms of public service in their lives, but are very loving and very moral, a good model,” he mentioned, noting that “I’m living in 2026, not ’06 and not ‘86.”
Another wildcard Bush faces in his bid for the Blaine House: Maine’s ranked-choice voting system.
His prime rival within the GOP major is Charles, a former US assistant secretary of state who has emerged as the sphere’s loudest conservative voice, and its most polarizing. Other candidates embrace former state Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason; University of Maine trustee and biotech entrepreneur Owen McCarthy; former Planet Fitness President Ben Midgley; and a handful of lesser-known contenders.
In a assertion to NCS, Charles criticized Bush as a “never Trumper,” arguing that Maine is “a small state, and it’s easy for people to get to know you, which means it’s also easy for them to see through you.”
Asked about how he sees the function of the Bush name in Tuesday’s major, Charles mentioned it’s a query value elevating: “Is this the last nail in the coffin for a family name that keeps losing races across the country? Seems so.”
Bush, in the meantime, has mentioned he would welcome the president’s help.
Under the first guidelines, if no candidate clears a majority after the primary spherical, the bottom vote-getters are eradicated and their supporters’ second-choice votes are redistributed till somebody reaches 50%.
That construction may benefit Bush, showing to complete the race with momentum. Charles, regardless of main in first-round estimates, is seen as a candidate with a slender ceiling, robust amongst dedicated conservatives however with restricted enchantment as a second alternative.
“I think the conventional wisdom here is that Bobby Charles is going to have the most votes and the question becomes, how close can Jonathan Bush get to him in the first round,” Harriman mentioned. “And then, do the people who voted for their second choice decide they would move in his direction.”
The Democratic aspect is additionally crowded, with Pingree and King competing in opposition to former state Senate President Troy Jackson, Nirav Shah, the previous director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and former Secretary of State Shenna Bellows.
Maine has not elected consecutive governors from the identical celebration since 1952, a historic sample that might work within the Republican nominee’s favor, with the outgoing two-term Democratic Gov. Janet Mills. But the overall election may also characteristic impartial Rick Bennett, a former Republican state senator seen as a viable spoiler.
The nationwide atmosphere provides one other variable. Midterm elections have traditionally punished the president’s celebration in Congress, and Maine’s governor’s race will not be insulated from the broader political temper.
But, Brewer, the political scientist, famous, “In a general, maybe the Bush name is a little more of a benefit than an anchor – but my answer depends on which election we’re talking about.”
Harriman additionally questioned if there may very well be a subliminal messaging profit to the name. “Clearly there’s something in those chromosomes that says, like, I need to serve,” he mentioned.