Kasich's hope to become the anti-Trump
BEREA – John Kasich won the Ohio primary by emerging as the anti-Donald Trump.
His future as a presidential candidate depends on whether the characterization sticks.
"I will not take the low road to the highest office in the land," Kasich told supporters Tuesday night, echoing a phrase he started using amid growing urgency about the invective and violent incidents that have characterized Trump's campaign.
In Ohio, the urgency of the movement to oppose Trump’s candidacy found its footing, with moderate Republicans and even some Democrats coming out to vote to deny the controversial billionaire the state’s winner-take-all 66-delegate prize. In the end, Kasich defeated Trump 47 percent to 36 percent. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz received 13 percent.
Election Results | Cincinnati.com
Kasich had taken on Trump by personifying everything Trump was not, rather than through battling him with words. He touted government experience as Trump boasted of his outsider status. He refused to criticize opponents while Trump hurled insults. He talked of taking your widowed neighbor out to dinner, while Trump reveled in cheers of "Build a wall! Build a wall!"
Kasich avoided criticizing Trump, saying attacks on Trump did little to persuade his supporters to change their minds. When Trump canceled a rally Friday in Chicago, and scuffles broke out between supporters and protesters, Kasich was the last candidate to release a statement.
Eventually, he cast the blame on Trump for creating a "toxic environment" and said his methods are "not how we fix America." But he declined on Tuesday morning to address Trump's demeaning comments about women -- in the news because of a brutal new ad from Trump opponents nationally and in Ohio -- adding he would have more to say at some point.
What Kasich does choose to say -- and how Trump responds -- may determine the success of his campaign.
Ohio could have been the ballgame
For now, Kasich is celebrating a victory in a primary that could have been the ballgame for Trump and his opponents.
Trump finished Tuesday night with 621 delegates to Cruz's 396 and Kasich's 138. Adding Ohio's 66 delegates to Trump's would have given the billionaire an even more insurmountable lead. Putting the delegates in Kasich's tally gives Trump opponents hope that he will fall short of the 1,237 he needs to win the nomination outright and increases the likelihood that the candidates will compete for each others' delegates in a contested convention in Cleveland in July.
For Kasich, the win represented more than an attempt to stop Trump. It saved his candidacy. He notched his first victory of the GOP campaign and found himself the last standing GOP establishment candidate. His lone remaining competitor among mainstream Republicans, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, dropped out Tuesday night after losing badly to Trump in his home state.
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The Ohio win keeps Kasich undefeated in elections in Ohio. But Kasich’s win represents more than just a two-term governor winning his home state, though his popularity among Ohio Republicans did boost him.
Voters for both candidates consistently said they liked Kasich as a governor, then used their feelings about Trump, not Kasich, as their main justification for casting their vote. Those who cast ballots for Kasich said they didn't think he had a good chance of winning the nomination, but they voted for him anyway because of their feelings about Trump.
"Just saying 'we're going to be great again,' for me that doesn't cut it," said Sean Cotter, a 49-year-old Dublin engineer, who said Monday night he planned to vote for Kasich. For Kasich, "the themes are about bringing people together and solving problems," he said. Still, when it comes to winning the nomination, he said, "his chances are a little limited."
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Even some Democrats, disturbed by what they've seen from Trump, joined in the quest. A little less than 1 in 10 of all GOP primary voters surveyed by the Associated Press said they were Democrats.
Peggy Shannon, 57, of the Northside neighborhood in Cincinnati, is a Democrat who voted for a Republican for president for the first time in her life on Tuesday. She chose Kasich, saying she hoped to deny Trump an outright victory and force him into a contested convention.
“I just think he’s un-American,” she said. “I think he doesn’t represent American values of inclusiveness and working together, and trying to find a conclusion to challenges that supports all of the parties, not just ones that happen to follow your beliefs.”
The three-man race
Kasich’s candidacy now rests on whether mainstream Republicans can capitalize on his Ohio win and unite behind him. In fact, his candidacy always has counted on the GOP establishment elevating a candidate, as it has year after year.
In 2016, voters have bucked those historic trends. The challenge remains steep.
Kasich now finds himself in a three-man race with Trump and Cruz, trailing by hundreds of delegates.
Cruz, the Texas senator, argues he is the alternative to Trump. He has racked up several wins over Trump and has pushed for weeks for other candidates to get out of the race so he can take on Trump one-on-one. But establishment Republicans have been loath to back the tea party darling.
Now that the field has thinned, Kasich hopes to win states with sizable populations of moderate Republicans, such as the cluster of Eastern states that have yet to vote. The pace of state primaries has slowed, giving him time to win them over. The pace also gives donors and Republican politicians time to decide whether to sign on to Kasich's campaign or whether to watch Kasich go it alone.
The Ohio governor can’t win the 1,237 delegates necessary to win the GOP nomination outright: There aren't enough delegates left to allocate, even if he won them all. But now that he has denied Trump Ohio’s 66 delegates, he campaign says, no one else can get to 1,237 either. Indeed, several delegate projections leading into Tuesday’s primary showed tight paths to the nomination for both Trump and Cruz if they continue at their similar support levels.
A contested convention in Cleveland seems increasingly likely.
“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,” Kasich strategist John Weaver said in a memo emailed to reporters Tuesday night. “More and more supporters are coming on board as they recognize Gov. Kasich is the only candidate left who can take on Donald Trump, unite the Party and win the White House in November.
On Tuesday, when it became apparent Kasich would win Ohio, Cruz endorser Carly Fiorina called on Kasich to drop out anyway.
“In Ohio, of course, he has the entire party behind him, so he is in his strongest position in Ohio, and there is no path beyond that,” Fiorina said, according to Politico.
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Kasich’s strength Tuesday night ran throughout Northern, Central and Southwest Ohio, including major metropolitan areas. Trump won or was leading in an arc of 31 contiguous counties running from northeast Ohio south to the Appalachian region and then west to Clermont County. Many of those counties have large populations of white Ohioans without college degrees, in keeping with Trump’s demographic strength nationally.
Trump also won in the rural counties of Logan, Darke and Preble counties.
Mike Kilian and the Associated Press contributed to this report.