Marco Rubio's biggest Achilles heel in the GOP race has been his relatively
anemic fundraising even as he's generally thrived in the debates and moved into third or fourth in
most national polls. Jeb!'s strength has been the polar opposite: a big fundraiser who's a terrible campaigner. But over the weekend, Rubio received a game changer when influential hedge fund manager and billionaire Paul Singer
threw his support behind the young Florida senator over Bush.
In a letter that Mr. Singer sent to dozens of other donors on Friday, which was obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Singer described Mr. Rubio — who was elected to the Senate in the Tea Party wave but has been embraced by the party’s Washington elite — as the only candidate who can “navigate this complex primary process, and still be in a position to defeat” Hillary Rodham Clinton in a general election.
He praised Mr. Rubio’s message of optimism about America’s future, his work on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and his ability to make a persuasive case to voters as key reasons to support him.
What separates Singer from other GOP billionaires like Sheldon Adelson, for instance, is the network of conservative donors that come with him. Beyond what he contributed personally to the 2012 presidential race, he also bundled $3 million for Mitt Romney.
After Jeb!'s lackluster debate performance last week, he was bound to start shedding donors. The real question was, whom would they go to?
Now, we may have an answer. Even though Singer was never definitively backing any specific candidate, he had been courted heavily by the teams of both Jeb! and Rubio. Singer's Rubio endorsement after that head-to-head match up could be the beginning of the end for Jeb! as the "GOP establishment candidate." The next sign of Jeb!'s undoing will be actual defectors—donors once in the Bush camp who actually jump ship.