COLUMBIA, S.C. — Donors who financed Jeb Bush’s failed campaign were surprised by his decision to drop out of the presidential race Saturday but were already beginning Sunday to move on to other candidates in hopes of stopping Donald Trump.
Bobbie Kilberg and her husband, Bill, who were recently named finance committee co-chairs for Bush, said they decided Sunday morning that they would join Sen. Marco Rubio’s campaign.
“He has the best and perhaps the only chance now of coalescing the mainstream part of the party and hopefully winning the nomination and being the one person who I think can take on Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton,” Bobbie Kilberg said. “I am very worried about nominating someone totally outside of the mainstream.”
Kilberg said she was contacted Sunday by the Rubio campaign and people in her network.
“I started getting phone calls from people within my group of donors saying, ‘Where do we go now? We’ll go where you go,’ ” she said.
The couple first supported New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie until he dropped out, and then joined Bush’s campaign Wednesday.
She said she thought both men, whom she has long known and admired, couldn’t get through to voters because of all of the attention on Trump.
“I can’t explain it. This is the strangest political season I have ever seen,” Kilberg said.
Dale Dykema, founder of T.D. Service Financial Corp. and a member of Bush’s finance committee, is also likely to support Rubio.
“There’s no way I can support either (Sen. Ted) Cruz or Trump, and I think Cruz is probably done for anyhow. I think it boils down to between Rubio and Trump,” he said. “I see no choice but to go with Rubio. I will do whatever I can to avoid Trump getting the nomination.”
