For John Kasich, now what?
The Ohio governor defeated front-runner Donald Trump in his home-state presidential primary on Tuesday, while Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida was knocked out of the race via loss in his home state at the hands of the New York celebrity businessman. These results provided a boost to Kasich’s underdog campaign heading into the next round of voting. Still, his path is narrow, and relies exclusively on forcing a contested nominating convention.
Kasich’s strategy rests on the GOP delegates in Cleveland choosing to bypass the likely first and second place vote getters — Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas — and throwing him the nomination. Ohio was Kasich’s first victory, and although there are plenty of states left on the primary calendar where he is expected to compete, its unclear where he wins next, if at all. Rubio was dogged by similar uncertainty throughout his campaign.
“I don’t see a path for Kasich to bolster his delegate count significantly,” said Nathan L. Gonzales, publisher and editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report.
Trump leads the delegate race with 673, followed by 411 for Cruz and 143 for Kasich. The first candidate to 1,237 becomes the presumptive presidential nominee. If that doesn’t happen before the July convention, a vote of the elected delegates on the floor of the convention would decide the outcome. Kasich isn’t conceding second place to Cruz, but at this point it only matters if Trump doesn’t wrap up the nomination beforehand, which is still a very real possibility.
If the real estate mogul and reality television star doesn’t get to 1,237, neutral political handicappers expect Kasich to finish third behind Cruz. The states voting next (on March 22) Arizona and Utah, are expected to be strong for Trump and Cruz, respectively. Kasich isn’t expected to have a shot to pick up more delegates until April, when Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and a few other states vote. Even there, the competition with Cruz and Trump should be fierce.
But the Kasich campaign dismisses naysayers. In a memo issued to the press just after Ohio was called for Kasich, chief strategist John Weaver declared definitively that Trump couldn’t win 1,237 delegates in the primaries and caucuses that remain. He said Kasich was the only candidate who could unite a fractured Republican Party, and that his superior electability over Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton would sway convention delegates.
On Wednesday, the Kasich campaign unveiled new advertising in Utah, although splitting anti-Trump vote there is likely to accrue only the benefit of Trump. Kasich also joined Trump and chose to skip the next televised debate, which has since been canceled. That move also would appear to benefit the front-runner. Asked to lay out Kasich’s strategy in greater detail, his spokesman, Rob Nichols, referred the Washington Examiner to the Weaver memo.
“With a narrowing field, Gov. Kasich is the candidate best positioned to go toe-to-toe in the remaining states. Our internal data shows that Rubio voters break to Gov. Kasich by a 3 to 1 margin,” Weaver wrote. “With the electoral map shifting significantly in our favor, Gov. Kasich is positioned to accumulate a large share of the almost 1,000 remaining delegates and enter Cleveland in strong position to become the nominee.”
Bolstering Kasich’s effort is his independent super PAC, New Day for America. The group expects to fulfill an undisclosed figure in pledged donations that were contingent upon Kasich winning Ohio, and is prepared to invest in advertising and field operations in certain states out west and in the northeast that it views as favorable to the governor.
The Cruz campaign continues to assert that Rubio’s exit has created a two-man race with Trump, and that only the senator can dethrone the front-runner. Cruz has a viable case to make.
The senator has won more delegates and defeated Trump in more states than Kasich. Cruz is likely, at some point, to satisfy the Republican National Committee’s Rule 40(b) requiring candidates to win a majority of delegates in at least eight states in order to be eligible for nomination in a vote of convention delegates. Cruz also is better resourced, and possesses a broader national grassroots organization, than Kasich.
New polling data to examine voter preferences with Rubio out of the race was not yet available. But older survey results suggest that Cruz could stand to pick up more support among Rubio supporters than Kasich, as the Floridian’s coalition was comprised of more than just so-called establishment-minded voters. That runs counter to the Kasich campaign’s claims.
There’s also the fact that Cruz has outperformed Kasich in states thought to be fertile territory for the Ohioan, including Michigan and Illinois. Kasich has yet to show real strength outside of his home state, or Vermont, where he finished a close second to Trump.
Cruz attempted to capitalize on that fact Tuesday, saying in his election night remarks that Republicans have a “clear” choice. “Only two campaigns have a plausible path to the nomination, ours and Donald Trump’s. Nobody else has any mathematical possibility whatsoever,” he said.
Kasich supporters privately concede the governor’s long odds. One of Kasich’s supporters described backing the governor as a “hail Mary pass” for Republicans who couldn’t stomach Cruz anymore than they could Trump, while predicting that, eventually, many would migrate to the senator anyway as the only option for stopping the billionaire populist.
“It seems better than doing nothing,” said a Republican operative with ties to Kasich supporters. “But unless Kasich wins something other than his home state soon, very reluctantly mainstream Republicans will give up the ghost and support Cruz.”
