Washington--Jeb Bush will launch his all-but-certain White House bid on June 15, he announced Thursday, the same day fellow Republican and former Texas governor Rick Perry jumped into the presidential race.
"Hope you all will join me for a special day," the son and brother of two US presidents posted on Twitter, with a graphic showing the date 6.15.15.
Bush, 62, makes his much-anticipated announcement at Miami Dade College's Kendall campus, following a trip next week to Germany, Poland and Estonia.
The former two-term Florida governor, who has amassed a substantial war chest in the months since announcing his interest in following father George H.W. Bush and brother George W. Bush into the White House, would enter an increasingly crowded GOP field.
Perry, who kicked off his presidential bid early Thursday with a campaign video, is the 10th Republican to officially jump in the race, joining the likes of first-term US Senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina.
There are some 16 possible major Republican candidates in all, but about five are bunched at the top of polls with 10 percent support each, including Bush, according to the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
Hillary Clinton is the early frontrunner in the Democratic field with no current close competition.
Bush's entry would immediately place him in the top tier, even though he has experienced difficulty wooing evangelical voters who are important in the early primary contests, and has struggled to answer questions over how his policies would differ from his brother's, notably on the Iraq war.
The conservative Perry, 65, launched his campaign with a sleek website featuring a high-tempo video promising to "do right and risk the consequences."
The website touted the number of jobs created and times taxes were cut during Perry's time in office in Texas. He plans a speech later Thursday at a small airport as part of his campaign rollout.
Perry, who was the longest serving governor in Texas history, had a failed, gaffe-ridden presidential bid in 2012.
AFP
