Bush becomes third candidate to submit ballot access signatures

The campaign of the former Florida Governor announced today that he has gathered twice the number of required signatures to gain access to Virginia’s March 1 GOP primary ballot.  This makes Bush the third candidate to announce successfully clearing this hurdle, behind Donald Trump (who submitted 15,000 signatures) and John Kasich, who did not announce a number.  According to the RTD, Kasich plans to file his petition signatures with the State Board of Elections in person this afternoon.

Bush’s Virginia campaign chairman is former Congressman Eric Cantor, who had this to say:

Former U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, co-chairman of Bush’s Virginia campaign, added in a statement that Bush “has a tremendous grassroots organization here in Virginia” and that “these signatures were gathered by Virginians who are fired up about electing Jeb Bush the next president of the United States.”

This move increases the pressure on the other campaigns, who appear to be lagging.  We know that the Cruz and Carson campaigns have been busy on this for several weeks, and I have no doubt they will make impressive showings.  I also expect the Rubio campaign (led in Virginia by Del. Tim Hugo) will be in fine shape.  It’s unclear where the Paul, Fiorina, Christie, Huckabee, and other campaigns are in this process.

The deadline for submission is December 10.