Ohio Gov. John Kasich said on Sunday that Republicans underperformed in last week’s special election in his home state, and warned his party that the failure to win decisively shows the GOP needs to make its messaging less divisive.
“It wasn’t a good night because this is a district that you should be winning by, you know, overwhelming numbers,” said Kasich on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The last guy won by, I don’t know, 17 points. So, what you had is, I think, a message from the voters to the Republicans that you’ve got to stop the chaos and you’ve got to get more in tune and stop alienating people and try to figure out, how do families do better.”
Republican Troy Balderson holds a slim lead against Democrat Danny O’Connor in the election for Ohio’s 12th Congressional District, but the winner has not officially been declared. Kasich represented the district, a Republican stronghold, during his time in Congress.
Balderson has tied himself closely to President Trump, using a polarizing platform focused on illegal immigration, the Second Amendment, and attacks against House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
[Also read: DNC chairman: Close Ohio race ‘gives me optimism’]
Kasich said Balderson turned off moderate, suburban voters in the 12th District by taking a controversial stand on social issues, rather than focusing on the economy and taxes.
“I mean, you can’t be talking about, you know, being in a fight here where maybe people could lose their healthcare if they have a pre-existing condition, or this business of separating children from their mothers and fathers at the border, or these tariffs that are just beginning to frighten a number of people in business,” Kasich said. “These kinds of messages, plus the overall chaos here, the chaos overseas. People just want the government to do its job, to improve the situation for them. Not to be, not to be on the front page and creating a chaotic environment all the time. They don’t want that.”
Kasich, as he has in the past, did not dismiss the possibility that he could run for president again in 2020.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said. “What I’m doing now is — look, I’m staying alive. I’m speaking out. But every time I say anything or observe something, people want to say, oh, well, that’s because he’s running for president. I really don’t know what I’m going to do. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. I don’t know.”
