Bush worse than expected...

Bush's Iowa performance is even worse than expected

Campaign instructs aides to argue Bush has greater potential in New Hampshire.

By Daniel Strauss and Alex Isenstadt

The bar was low for Jeb Bush's finish in Monday's Iowa caucus. He failed to clear it anyway.

After a blowout defeat that landed him in sixth place with just 2.8 percent of the vote, Bush's campaign is now directing top aides and surrogates to highlight the lack of emphasis the one-time front-runner placed on the state – and to make the case that he has far higher expectations in New Hampshire.

“The real race for the nomination begins on February 9th in New Hampshire,” the campaign wrote in a “talking points” memo sent to advisers and high-profile supporters. “It will set the race going forward and today, Jeb Bush is in a very strong position in the state.”

It goes on to add: “The Jeb 2016 campaign has never made Iowa a centerpiece to winning the nomination. We have long viewed Iowa as just one of 56 contests, electing 30 delegates out of 2,472 going to the Convention to select our nominee.”

Surrogates are then reminded that in November a “strategic decision” was made to “shift resources away from Iowa.” Bush’s time in Iowa, it notes, was “significantly scaled back.” In December and January, it says, Bush “went 40 days without visiting Iowa.”

Bush rival Marco Rubio, meanwhile, “invested far more significantly in” the state.

The memo identifies New Hampshire as “better terrain” for the former governor, and it provides extensive historical detail for why it’s a far better barometer of who goes on to win the nomination than Iowa.

Bush has more than 40 paid campaign staff across five offices in New Hampshire. The memo points to a series of recent favorable polls and high profile endorsements, and notes that “we have the largest voter contact effort in the state.”

“With a field unprecedented in its depth and size, we don’t expect Iowa to be a factor in winnowing the field,” the memo concludes. “By contrast, New Hampshire has a much stronger record of indicating the eventual Republican nominee. The Republican Party’s previous two nominees lost Iowa and won New Hampshire.”

Bush came in behind Sen. Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Sen. Marco Rubio, Ben Carson and even Sen. Rand Paul. He inched past John Kasich, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie and Rick Santorum.

Such a Bush finish once seemed impossible. The former Florida governor made a thunderous entry into the race last year, and he made a splash in Iowa as well, assigning David Kochel, a top GOP operative with strong ties to Iowa, to help lead the effort there. But he never captured voter enthusiasm like Cruz and Trump did, and he struggled mightily in the first handful of GOP debates.

For Bush, the best thing about the Iowa caucuses is that they're over, and now the campaign moves to New Hampshire, where Bush has concentrated his efforts. Further complicating his efforts, however, is a strong finish from Rubio. As the GOP establishment looks for a candidate to beat back Cruz and Trump, Bush will have to convince them that he is a better standard bearer than a rival, who bested him by around 20 percentage points.

"I think it’s a very rough night for all of the Establishment candidates. I wrote earlier this week that finishing in 6th or worse makes getting to New Hampshire a difficult slog and severely dents the aura of viability," GOP operative Reed Galen said Monday night of the Iowa returns so far.

Christian Ferry, who served as Sen. Lindsey Graham's presidential campaign manager before the South Carolina senator dropped out, brushed off the results and the prospect of Bush ending up near the end of the pack in Iowa. "I think voters in New Hampshire don't normally too much about what happens in Iowa," Ferry said.