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 But that was last year.
Now Bush faces what party strategists and donors view as a make or
break moment on Saturday in South Carolina's Republican primary, or
early nominating contest. Polls show him trailing in the single
digits. If he fails to do well, there will be pressure on him to
quit, strategists say, and the oil money will be looking for a new
home.
The main beneficiaries in the Republican race would likely be Ted
Cruz, a U.S. Senator from Texas, and Marco Rubio, a U.S. Senator
from Florida. After Bush, the two candidates received the most
contributions from the oil and gas industry, according to the
Reuters review.
When Bush entered the White House race last year, the petroleum
sector saw him as their natural choice: he was the son and brother
of former presidents and he came from a West Texas family with
historically close ties to the oil industry.
"Bush is part of a family that is a friendly face to the oil
industry," said Sarah Emerson, director of Energy Security Analysis
Inc. in Boston.
 He drew more than $2 million from the chief executive officers of
companies like Exxon Mobil <XOM.N>, Halliburton <HAL.N>, Kinder
Morgan <KMI.N>, and Chief Oil & Gas in 2015, making up about 56
percent of all the industry’s contributions to the race so far,
according to the review.
The review covered contributions from 75 oil and gas companies,
their employees, and their political action committees to
presidential candidates' campaigns and allied Super PACs. When
counting donations only to Republican candidates’ campaigns,
employees favored Cruz among the Republicans, with Bush in second
place and Rubio in third.
(Click here for a graphic on oil and gas money in the U.S.
presidential race: http://tmsnrt.rs/24cW28e )
Several of Bush’s biggest oil CEO donors have links to his family.
Richard Kinder of Kinder Morgan, for example, campaigned for George
H.W. Bush’s run for the White House in 1992, and for George W.
Bush’s run in 2004. Halliburton’s CEO, David Lesar, meanwhile,
succeeded Dick Cheney after George W. Bush nominated him vice
president in 2000.
"Some of those people may be thinking support can get them a place
in Bush-world," said one Washington D.C.-based oil industry
lobbyist, who asked not to be named. "The question is, where does
that money go if Bush bleeds out?"
Bush is now running in fifth place among seven Republicans in a
national Reuters/Ipsos poll. He has just 8 percent support leading
into Saturday's primary, compared with front-runner Donald Trump's
40 percent. Cruz and Rubio came second and third in the poll with 17
percent and 11 percent, respectively.
Donations directly from oil companies and their political action
committees or PACs have been practically nil – suggesting that
millions of dollars remain on the sidelines of the race that could
be deployed once the field of candidates narrows.
[to top of second column] |
RISE OF THE CEO
This year’s election is particularly important to oil and gas
executives because of a steep slump in energy prices that has
slashed profits and worries that another Democratic president could
strengthen curbs on drilling and carbon emissions introduced by
President Barack Obama.
"There is a pronounced partisan agenda on energy,” said Robert
McNally, founder and president of the Washington-based global energy
consultancy The Rapidan Group, explaining the two parties have moved
farther apart on energy policy. “There’s no middle of the road
anymore,” he said.
As a group, oil and gas company CEOs have doled out nearly $3.2
million in support of presidential candidates so far – more than
three times more than all oil company employees did in the
equivalent period of the 2012 race. One million dollars of that went
to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who dropped out in September.
The CEOs are not alone in giving big. Some families that made their
cash in the oil industry have also been major donors, like the Wilks
brothers of Texas, who have given Cruz's Super PAC $15 million.
The biggest oil company CEO donations to current candidates have
come from the heads of Kinder Morgan and Chief Oil and Gas, at more
than $1 million each to Bush's campaign and his allied Right To Rise
USA Super PAC, according to the filings to the Federal Election
Commission. Rubio, meanwhile, took some $38,000 from chief
executives at Devon Energy <DVN.N>, AGL <AGL.AX>, and Atmos <ATO.N>.
Cruz received no money from energy company CEOs.
Individual donations from oil company employees who were not CEOs
appeared to favor Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton, who took in
more than $110,000. Cruz was next with nearly $105,000.
(Editing by Ross Colvin)
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