President George H.W. Bush will vote for Hillary Clinton this November. So says Kathleen Hartington Kennedy Townsend, the former Maryland lieutenant governor and daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy.
Townsend visited Bush in Maine on Monday and then posted a picture to her Facebook account of her and the former president with a caption: “The President told me he’s voting for Hillary!!” She later confirmed her scoop to Politico. “That’s what he said,” she told the outlet. Bush’s spokesman, meanwhile, neither confirmed nor denied the story. “The vote President Bush will cast as a private citizen in some 50 days will be just that: a private vote cast in some 50 days,” Jim McGrath told reporters. “He is not commenting on the presidential race in the interim.”
The Bush family has largely kept quiet since Jeb Bush dropped out of the GOP race, but their displeasure with Donald Trump is far from a secret. George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Jeb have all declined to endorse the GOP nominee, and all three were notably absent from the Republican national convention this summer. Former first ladies Barbara Bush and Laura Bush have also had harsh words for Trump. And a number of former officials in both Bush administrations have made it clear they can’t bring themselves to vote for the celebrity businessman, with a smaller subset—including former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr.—saying publicly that they will pull the lever for Clinton.
Given all that, the report suggesting H.W. will vote for Clinton shouldn’t surprise anyone. Still, it doesn’t have to be shocking to be remarkable. One of two living Republican presidents will reportedly vote for the Democratic nominee this fall. And it stands to reason that the other one will as well.
