US Republican ex-president says will vote for Clinton: Sources

Former US Republican President George H.W. Bush has allegedly expressed his support for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the November election, sources say.

Sources close to the former president made the revelation on Tuesday, saying this was not the first time Bush had disclosed his intention to vote for Clinton.

“The President told me he’s voting for Hillary, that’s what he said,” Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the niece of President John F. Kennedy, wrote in a Facebook post.

The 92-year-old former president had already said in May that he would not endorse the party’s nominee Donald Trump.

The surprising move comes as the entire Bush family, including ex-president George W. Bush and Jeb Bush, a former Florida governor and ex-2016 presidential hopeful, skipped last month’s Republican National Convention, where Trump was officially nominated.

Jeb had also made it clear before the convention that he would not vote for Trump or Clinton in November.

"I will not vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, but I will support principled conservatives at the state and federal levels, just as I have done my entire life,” he wrote on his Facebook page in May.

Trump said during a Tampa, Florida, campaign event in June that he was waiting for his endorsement.

“I don’t think he’s going to endorse me, do you folks?” Trump asked his supporters before dismissively adding, “Who the hell cares?”

Jeb Bush predicted in July that the real estate mogul’s supporters will feel "betrayed" when his campaign promises fail to materialize.

“There isn't going to be a wall built," Bush told MSNBC in an interview. “And Mexico's not going to pay for it. And there's not going to be a ban on Muslims.”

The New York businessman's campaign has been marred by his disparaging remarks against minorities in the US. His comments include a call to ban all Muslims from coming to America as well as forced deportation of Mexican migrants by building a long wall along the US-Mexico border.

Trump has also sought for a database to track Muslims across the United States and said that the US would have "absolutely no choice" but to close down mosques.

Trump’s proposal has been condemned by Muslim and human rights groups as well as his Democratic rival and many of his Republican proponents who describe the proposal as divisive, counterproductive and contrary to American values.

Over the past few days, nearly all polls have indicated a tightening race between Clinton and Trump at national and state levels as nearly 50 days are left to the presidential vote.

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