Some New Hampshire primary voters may be trying to decide between John Kasich and…Bernie Sanders?
That’s what a story in the Boston Globe claims is happening with independents as New Hampshire’s open primary on February 9 approaches:
McCracken isn’t the only one. “Kasich, I always liked his policies,” said another voter quoted by the Globe. “And Bernie has a very powerful message. Neither one is very bombastic. Trump, and Hillary, and [Senator Ted] Cruz — the bark seems worse than the bite. We’re sick of all the noise from the candidates.”
Independents might see more than surface-level similarities between Kasich and Democrats. Throughout his presidential bid, Kasich has found himself moving to the left an a whole host of issues. This cuts against the typical pattern for GOP presidential candidates: the eventual nominee moves rightward during the primary to appeal to the party’s base, then moves toward the center for the general election. But 2016 has been anything but typical, and Kasich appears to be turning the idea of moving right in a primary on its head.
Take birthright citizenship, which grants U.S. citizenship to any person born in the United States or to anyone born abroad to at least one parent who is an American citizen. In 1993, as a member of Congress, Kasich was an original co-sponsor for both a bill and a resolution that would have limited citizenship to children born in the U.S. whose mother was either a citizen or a legal resident. When Kasich first ran for governor in 2010, he took a hardline stance on illegal immigration, and reiterated his longstanding support for amending federal law on birthright citizenship.
“One thing that I don’t want to reward is illegal immigration,” Kasich told the Columbus Dispatch in 2010.
But in an August interview on CNN, Kasich backed away from the idea when asked about his 1993 co-sponsorship by Jake Tapper. “Would ending birthright citizenship be part of this larger immigration approach?” asked Tapper. “I don’t think we need to go there,” Kasich replied.
It’s not just on immigration where Kasich’s taken a more liberal position. In 1995, when he served as House Budget chairman, he proposed a number of spending cuts, including cutting the budget for the National Institutes of Health by 5 percent and instituting a spending freeze for the agency thereafter. Twenty years later, at an event in Iowa, Kasich had a different view of the matter, telling voters “we do need to double the NIH budget and begin to do the vital medical research, and it should be a priority of the government.”
The committee under Kasich also passed a proposed budget in 1995 that would have eliminated the Department of Education (along with Energy and Commerce)—a goal of budget-conscious and small-government conservatives since the Reagan era. But in an interview with the Seventy-Four in August, Kasich criticized Republicans for using rhetoric about “killing” the department of education.
On abortion, Kasich calls himself pro-life and has a complementary record as Ohio governor to prove it. He signed into law both a ban on late-term abortions and a budget that defunded Planned Parenthood, and Ohio has seen a drop in the number of abortions overall while he’s been governor. But Kasich has also said that Republicans focus “too much” on abortion as a political issue, and when questioned about whether he would “respect” the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, Kasich responded, “It’s the law of the land now, and we live with the law of the land.”
Kasich’s shift leftward may be more rhetorical than policy-based. It’s worth noting, though, his most notorious break from conservatism on policy—his decision to accept additional Medicaid funding for Ohio as part of the Affordable Care Act—has also been a useful rhetorical cudgel for Kasich to paint himself as more caring and compassionate than his GOP rivals.
Kasich isn’t the only getting consideration from Sanders-leaning independents. In the Globe story, one New Hampshire voter says she’s deciding between Sanders, Kasich, and Marco Rubio. And he wouldn’t be the first Republican candidate to try peeling off independents in New Hampshire. The Globe points out this was former Utah governor Jon Huntsman’s strategy in 2012, and he got nearly 17 percent of the vote on the way to third place.
It didn’t work for Huntsman, who dropped out shortly after the New Hampshire primary. But in a divided field like the current one, it could be enough to boost a candidate to second place behind New Hampshire leader Donald Trump. Kasich sounds hopeful. “You know what that tells you?” he said in an interview with the Globe about the Sanders/Kasich crossover. “‘Boy, I tell you, I can’t really define him. He’s really interesting. And he’s different.’ What could be better than that?”
