Ohio Gov. John Kasich signaled Sunday that he is open to tacit cooperation with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., as each bids to stop Donald Trump in their home states.
“I am not campaiging in Florida,” Kasich said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” when asked about the Rubio campaign’s instruction that its backers in Ohio to vote for Kasich to help the governor hold off Trump in the state.
Kasich’s team quickly rebuffed that proposal, saying they didn’t need Rubio’s votes and that Kasich voters should vote Kasich in Florida.
Kasich said he is focused on winning in primaries in Ohio and Illinois on Tuesday.
“I am gonna win Ohio,” he said.
Kasich did not explicity tell his backers to support Rubio, however. “It’s really hard to tell your voter to go vote for somebody else,” he said.
Figures such as Mitt Romney have argued that the best way to stop Donald Trump is to vote for the most apparently competitive candidate other than Trump in each individual state, denying Trump a majority of Republican delegates, and forcing a brokered convention.
Kasich continued Sunday to attack Trump for inciting violence at his rallies and for pandering to negative feelings among his backers.
“The way you get those votes is to tell them how you can fix things,” Kasich said. “I also think you can walk into a room of 100 people and you can put them in a really bad mood, or you can walk in that same room and get them to be hopeful.”
