A member of the Bush family is now officially in the race to become Maine’s next governor.
Health care entrepreneur Jonathan Bush, the cousin of former President George W. Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, launched his gubernatorial campaign Wednesday after exploring a Republican bid since the summer. Bush had been increasing his presence in Maine political circles since the Bangor Daily News first mentioned his moves last year. His well-known cousins also hosted a fundraiser for him at the family’s Kennebunkport compound in August.
Bush, 56, was joined Wednesday by his brother, the television presenter Billy Bush, and hundreds of supporters at the Belfast office of athenahealth, the health company he cofounded in the 1990s before moving its office and hundreds of jobs to the midcoast town in 2007.
Bush said Wednesday he is running for governor to “slam the brakes on the defeatist notion that somehow Maine can’t do better.”
“I am a disruptor, a job creator and a fanatic Maine optimist, and when I’m governor, this age of pessimism will end,” Bush said. “Maine will be the best state in the nation to start and run a business. We’ll be the easiest state in the nation to build new homes. We’ll lower our taxes and improve our schools, and this beautiful state will finally have the economy it deserves.”
He joins a crowded 2026 gubernatorial field seeking to succeed Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat who is termed out of office. Other Republicans are still considering bids, including 2018 nominee Shawn Moody and former Maine Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason.
Bush will draw plenty of attention and scrutiny from other candidates, and his family name could prove to be both an asset and liability in Maine and in a Republican Party controlled by President Donald Trump. Bush called Trump “personally troubled” in an interview last year and worked against him during the 2024 primaries. He grew up in New York City and spent summers in North Haven while growing up, moving permanently to Cape Elizabeth in 2021.
Bush was pushed out of athenahealth in 2018 following an activist investor’s campaign. It came amid reports he confessed to physical altercations with his ex-wife more than a decade earlier. Both said they have successfully co-parented their five kids after divorcing.
In a memo shared ahead of Wednesday’s announcement, the Bush campaign touched on potential attack lines against him by saying Bush and his first wife, Sarah Selden Bush, have a “great relationship to this day” and that she even supports his gubernatorial bid.
“Jonathan is a loving father. A man of decency who cares deeply about the state of Maine. He is passionate and goal focused, and he’ll bring that energy to the Governor’s office,” Selden Bush said in the memo. “I support him and I hope the people of Maine will too.”
The campaign also said Bush is “a Mainer, to the core,” and that his current wife’s family has been in the state for seven generations. Regarding Bush’s comments about Trump and his family’s rocky relationship with the president, the campaign’s memo said it polled Maine Republicans this summer and found 71% have a “favorable view” of the Bush family.
Other gubernatorial campaigns will expect Bush to have plenty of funding on hand, particularly after his family members hosted the August fundraiser for him in Kennebunkport. He is among the contenders who used exploratory committees that allow them to raise and spend unlimited sums of money that they do not have to disclose until after officially launching a campaign.
