The Latest: Bush says time was right to call in family help
By Associated Press
Feb 7, 2016 11:18 AM CST
Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, answers a question during a Republican presidential primary debate hosted by ABC News at the St. Anselm College Saturday, Feb. 6, 2016, in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/David Goldman)   (Associated Press)

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — The Latest on the race for president in the window between the Republican and Democratic debates and the 2016 New Hampshire presidential primary on Tuesday: (all times local):

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12:15 p.m.

Jeb Bush has called in the Bush family troops, but he says he didn't make a mistake by keeping them at a distance for so long in his presidential campaign.

The Republican candidate's mother — former first lady Barbara Bush — has been campaigning in New Hampshire. His brother, former President George W. Bush, plans to campaign in South Carolina ahead of the GOP primary on Feb. 20.

A super political actions committee that supports Jeb Bush is airing an ad that features his brother.

The former Florida governor says that when he started his White House run, it was important to first explain to voters his experience and ideas.

The candidate tells "Fox News Sunday" that "I'm a Bush, and I've never tried to disown that."

He says he thinks the timing of his family's involvement in campaigning "is appropriate."

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11:55 a.m.

Ted Cruz is opening up about how religion has transformed his life.

The Republican presidential candidate tells members of a New Hampshire congregation that his family's religious devotion is due largely to his father's conversion to Christianity decades ago.

The Texas senator says his father was a drunk who abandoned Cruz and his mother when Cruz was a toddler.

Then Rafael Cruz met a pastor who challenged him to stop resisting Christianity.

Ted Cruz tells worshippers at the First Assembly of God in Auburn, New Hampshire, that his father "literally fell to his knees and gave his life to Jesus."

Rafael soon returned to his family and raised Cruz as a devout Christian.

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11 a.m.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says "he felt justified" with his takedown of rival Marco Rubio in the latest GOP presidential debate.

Christie is looking ahead to the general election, and he thinks Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee.

On Sunday Christie was using Rubio's debate performance to speculate about how the Florida senator would fare in a debate against Clinton.

The New Jersey governor puts it this way during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday": Do Republicans want someone who can "absolutely answer" Clinton's "every parry" or "someone who will crumble in front" of the former secretary of state?

Christie and Rubio, along with Jeb Bush and John Kasich, are jockeying to become the preferred alternative to outsiders Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in the GOP race.

Rubio seems best positioned to seize that spot after his third-place finish in Iowa. But Christie says Rubio's isn't ready for the presidency. The New Jersey governor is seizing on Rubio's repetitious characterization of Barack Obama's presidency when Christie repeatedly challenged Rubio's executive experience: "There it is, the memorized 25-second speech. There it is everybody," Christie said at one point in the debate.

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9:55 a.m.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton says she knows she's behind going into Tuesday's New Hampshire primary and doesn't know if she can win.

But she tells CNN's "State of the Union" that she's "a different person than I was back in 08." That year she won the New Hampshire primary but lost the Democratic presidential nomination to then-Sen. Barack Obama.

Once president, Obama named Clinton his secretary of state. She suggests that experience helped her understand people's anxieties.

She says that in 2016, people are concerned that the economy and the government "aren't working for them...and that's causing a lot of the anger and frustration."

She says she gets that, adding, "I feel it."

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9:50 a.m.

Don't like the Pacific Rim trade deal that President Barack Obama supports?

Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders don't either, but Trump says only he would be able to "do something about it."

Trump says Sunday on CNN that, "Bernie can't do anything about it, because it's not his thing."

The billionaire developer did not specify what he would do to weaken or cancel the sweeping Trans Pacific Partnership between the U.S. and 11 other nations.

The oddball competition across party lines in New Hampshire is for the state's largest bloc of registered voters — those whose party affiliations are undeclared.

New Hampshire voters go to the polls for the nation's first primary on Tuesday.

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9:45 a.m.

Don't expect a one-term pledge from Donald Trump.

The Republican presidential candidate says there are "certain advantages" to such a declaration, but it's not for him.

Trump says if he was "lucky enough to win" the White House and "if we're doing a great job, then we'll keep going."

And if things aren't going so well?

In that case, Trump tells NBC's "Meet the Press," ''we have automatic termination. It's called, the voters will terminate" — the public version of a Trump signature line, "You're fired."

But, the billionaire businessman adds, "That won't happen."

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9 a.m.

Hillary Clinton is detouring from New Hampshire to Flint, Michigan, on Sunday for a quick visit.

Aides say she was invited by Flint Mayor Karen Weaver, and that Clinton plans a town hall meeting with Flint residents before returning to New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Tuesday.

Clinton has pointed to the crisis of lead-poisoned water in Flint as an example of racial and economic injustice. That's an issue that resonates among Democrats, particularly African-American voters.

The Democratic presidential candidate said in Thursday's debate that the federal government needs to hold Michigan responsible for the situation in Flint, while finding ways to remedy the "terrible burden" that people in Flint are facing, such as helping to pay for health care costs.

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