In Kasich's Ohio, GOP divide bedevils state party

COLUMBUS — GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz aren't the only Republicans railing against the establishment.

In Ohio, tea party leaders and social conservatives recruited dozens of like-minded Republicans to run against current members of the state party's 66-member governing body.

Their frustration mirrors the nationwide angst but their complaints are Ohio-, and often Gov. John Kasich-, specific: They won't forgive Kasich for expanding Medicaid to lower-income Ohioans over the objections of some GOP state lawmakers. They loathe the governor's support of nationwide Common Core education standards, and say the state party does little to check the governor's power.

"Challengers are doing phenomenally well, because a lot of the Republican base is kind of fed up," said John McAvoy of the Northwest Ohio Conservative Coalition. He and Portage County Tea Party executive director Tom Zawistowski recruited challengers for nearly all of the 54 contested races for state central committee. "I believe the exact same reason that the Cruzes and the Trumps are doing well, that’s what’s also going on at the bottom of the ticket."

These bottom-of-the-ticket races don't get much attention, especially in the presidential election year, but the 66 unpaid members — 33 men and 33 women, one of each for every Senate district — make important decisions about the direction of the Republican Party in Ohio, including whether to endorse incumbent lawmakers and who will serve as party chair.

In 2008, just 18 of these races were contested, but that number has risen in recent years. The bar for making the ballot is low: just five signatures and no fee. The anti-establishment effort collected nearly $5,000 through Ohio Citizens PAC — a small amount for a statewide push — and created groups like the Hamilton County Republican PAC and Ohio Republican PAC to endorse candidates.

Still, established incumbents will win the vast majority of these races; about 20 could be real contests, said Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges, adding that he has "zero hard feelings" against those organizing the effort to unseat incumbents. But challengers shouldn't count on Trump supporters voting for them on the down-ticket races either, Borges said.

"They supposedly hate the establishment," Borges said. "They don’t hate the establishment. They hate the fact that they aren’t the establishment."

Among challengers' complaints: the state central committee recently endorsed Kasich for president, a show of support that committee members said was logical given the historic nature of a sitting Republican governor running for the White House. But opponents call the endorsement a clear conflict of interest, because several members of the state central committee are also Kasich delegates.

"I thought it was a poor decision for the Ohio Republican Party to make for every Republican in Ohio," said Cincinnati Tea Party President Ann Becker, who is running for state central committee in Butler County. "They should have stayed out of the endorsement process."

For challengers, the endorsement is just one more example of the tight hold Kasich has on the state party. Team Kasich helped arrange the 2012 ouster of then-Ohio Republican Party chairman Kevin DeWine, and later supported Borges' bid to lead the party in 2013. The state central committee has avoided voting on the Republican National Committee platform, which opposes Common Core standards that Kasich supports in Ohio.

Borges said the platform is a four-year-old document that led to Republican losses nationwide, and Kasich doesn't wield any undue influence over the party.

"All (Kasich) has ever asked me to do is run the party the right way," Borges said. "He does not get involved in the day-to-day operations of the party at all."

And just take a look at the results, said Alex Triantafilou, chairman of the Hamilton County Republican Party. Republicans hold every statewide office and a super-majority in both the House and Senate. Kasich decimated weak Democratic governor candidate Ed FitzGerald in 2014, and is running for president.

Yet Triantafilou, a state central committee member, is facing a challenger, Roman Jerger, for the first time.

"For whatever reason, they don’t like success," Triantafilou said of the challengers. "The Republican party has dominated statewide elections. They’ve had an extraordinary run."

But that doesn't mean much if GOP lawmakers and elected officials don't stand up for conservative ideas, challengers say. "They are the definition of RINO, Republican in Name Only, starting with John Kasich who is running in the wrong primary. John Kasich is a Democrat, not a Republican," Zawistowski said.

In a Quinnipiac University Poll released Wednesday, Kasich trailed Trump by 6 percentage points among Ohio voters. But with tea party voters, Kasich was 24 percentage points behind Cruz, and 19 percentage points behind Trump.

Donald Trump, John Kasich deadlocked in Ohio polls

Still, challengers underestimate how easy it would be to change the course of the Ohio Republican Party, said former Madeira Mayor Mary Anne Christie, who serves on the state central committee. She knows that firsthand from when she tried to become vice chair of the party in 2013 but didn't have enough votes.

"It’s great to talk about what you are going to do, but you can’t get it just because you stand up there and preach," Christie said.

And committee member Stanley Aronoff, a former Ohio Senate president, said the governing body is more diverse than challengers might think. "You are sort of elected because of your own positions and execute what group feels is good for the Republican Party," he said.

But McAvoy, and others mounting this challenge, say what's good for the Republican Party is change.

"We’re latching onto the wave that you’re seeing. The Trump wave. The Cruz wave," McAvoy said. "We have to capitalize on the fury of the people. They are pissed."