PENSACOLA, Fla. — Less than a week after real estate developer Donald Trump played to 20,000 to 30,000 people at an outdoor football stadium in Mobile, Alabama, Jeb Bush on Wednesday made his case about an hour away at the Pensacola Bay Center arena in Florida.

Well, not actually in the arena itself — but in a conference room off to the side. The capacity 300-person room was filled. Another couple hundred people watched from an overflow spot.

The contrast between the two events couldn’t be more stark. That Trump drew energy from a loud, boisterous crowd, the biggest of any Republican presidential campaign so far this year, is already abundantly clear. But Bush’s “town hall” was a decidedly lower key, lower energy affair.

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The biggest political star to join Trump on stage was a U.S. senator — Alabama’s Jeff Sessions — although he did not formally endorse him. The biggest political star to join Bush, Florida’s former governor, on Wednesday was a representative — Pensacola’s Jeff Miller, who has endorsed Bush.

“Do we have to talk about this guy?” asked Bush.

Bush’s prepared remarks were less than half as long as Trump’s speech in Mobile, although he spent another half hour answering questions from the supportive audience.

Bush did not mention Trump by name until a Latino man asked a question.

“Do we have to talk about this guy?” Bush asked.

He did anyway, taking on Trump’s proposal to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. Bush said his own plan to stop illegal immigration includes stamping out sanctuary cities — a “disaster” — making more use of technology like drones and global positioning satellites, increasing the number of border agents patrolling the boundary and clamping down on people who illegally overstay their visas.

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Bush said he heard a persistent message from local officials during his recent visit to McAllen, Texas.

“The first thing they told me was, before I asked, they said, ‘You can’t build a wall and solve this problem in our part of the country. The terrain is too rugged,’” he said. “It’s a simple thing to say. But it’s not practical, and it’s not conservative.”

During his formal remarks, Bush made only veiled references to Trump, such as when he talked about some candidates who believe volume equals leadership.

During his formal remarks, Bush made only veiled references to Trump, such as when he talked about some candidates who believe volume equals leadership.

“Talking is not leadership. Doing is leadership,” he said. “I’m not a grievance candidate … It’s time for us to stop moping around.”

Speaking in Spanish, he said it is important for a Republican candidate to campaign “with your arms wide open.”

Bush’s style contrast with Trump was a consistent theme.

Earlier, Bush said:  “It’s not about yapping. It’s not about talking. It’s about doing.”

“I’m not a grievance candidate,” said Bush. “It’s time for us to stop moping around.”

If there is any place in the country where Bush should be selling, it’s here — in one of the most Republican pockets of a state he twice won elections for governor.

Escambia County, of which Pensacola is the government seat, gave Mitt Romney 60 percent of the vote in 2012. Bush got 67 percent of the vote in the 1998 gubernatorial race, and 65 percent when he ran for re-election four years later. That was his 13th and 14th best, respectively, in those two elections. Neighboring Santa Rosa County backed Bush by even higher percentages.

“I’m not concerned about anything,” he said.

But a pair of polls this month have suggested that he trails Trump even in his home state of Florida. He waved off a question from LifeZette about that as he left the conference room.

“I’m not concerned about anything,” he said.

Related: Jeb’s Border Rush

The people who showed up for Bush were a mixture of longtime supporters in a state that knows him best and folks who said they were looking for more information. Some had deep personal connections. Pensacola resident Margot Robinson said Bush, when he was governor, sent an aide to help her with expenses and moral support when a brutal rape left her daughter on a feeding tube for months.

“She never had bedsores, because of what the governor did,” she said. “It proved he would make a good president.”

Angela Dietrich, who lives in nearby Gulf Breeze, said she was impressed by Bush’s answer to the immigration problem.

“Before, I was very pro-build the wall. I didn’t know they had all those issues,” she said. “I actually think it made me more likely to vote for him.”

Bush’s speech focused heavily on his record as governor of the Sunshine State from 1999 to 2007. He highlighted his first-in-the-nation statewide school voucher program, tax cuts, a 13,000-employee reduction in the state government workforce, and a 1.3 million increase in private sector jobs. He also touted his handling of eight hurricanes and four tropical storms in a 16-month period.

“It wasn’t in the playbook when I got elected,” he said.

Bush took several shots at President Obama over scandals involving the IRS targeting of conservative interest groups, the deaths of four Americans during an attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and a failure to deliver timely care at veterans health clinics.

He noted that “no one accepts responsibility.”

Bush promised to reform the federal tax code and fix entitlements, which he said would lead to 4 percent annual growth — a rate not see since before his brother was president.

Bush promised to reform the federal tax code and fix entitlements, which he said would lead to 4 percent annual growth — a rate not seen since before his brother was president.

In answering questions from the audience, Bush defended his support for the Common Core State Standards Initiative but added the federal government should have nothing to do with it. He also said he has nothing to apologize for when discussing his family, including his father and brother who both served as president.

He said he needs to highlight his record and his ideas, and he suggested Pensacola was a good place to do it.

“The Jeb story starts in Florida,” he said.

Whether that story ever takes off across the country — or even in his home state — remains an open question.