The rush of establishment support John Kasich had hoped for after his Ohio primary win has failed to materialize, as a slowly building group of leaders — including Jeb Bush as of Wednesday morning — instead is backing conservative Ted Cruz.
With the Ohio victory, which came the same day as Marco Rubio dropped out of the race, Kasich emerged as the last mainstream Republican standing. But establishment Republicans, such as donors and members of Congress who had flocked to Rubio, greeted Kasich’s win last week with little more than a glance his way.
Texas Sen. Cruz didn’t exactly receive a mainstream-GOP group hug. But he picked up all 40 delegates in Utah on Tuesday night to Kasich’s zero. Meanwhile, Donald Trump gathered all 58 of Arizona’s delegates, widening his lead over his rivals.
More than the delegate lead, it’s who has decided to back Cruz, and how, that poses the biggest problem for Kasich. In the past week, top leaders in the effort to stop Trump have come out behind Cruz — loudly. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, Gov. Nikki Haley and — days after campaigning for Kasich — Mitt Romney embraced the Texas senator. On Wednesday morning, establishment standard-bearer Bush joined them.
What’s worse: Anti-Trump voices, led by Romney, tacitly are suggesting Kasich should drop out, saying he’ll steal votes from Cruz’s more promising effort to defeat Trump.
The message: Thanks for winning Ohio, but please get out of the way. It’s the right thing to do.
That doesn’t exactly seem like gratitude to Kasich, who is trying to become president — not just stop Trump.
Kasich and his advisers say Republicans need him if they want to defeat the controversial billionaire front-runner. Kasich, they say, can steal more delegates from Trump than Cruz can hope to in primaries in the Midwest, East and West Coast. Plus, Kasich has the best shot of the three Republicans of winning the White House in November, they say, so the party must keep him as a possible choice for this summer’s Republican National Convention.
“A choice between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz is no choice at all. Either one would lose in November. The question is really: ‘Who has the strength and vision to lead our country?’ That’s John Kasich,” said John E. Sununu, a former U.S. senator from New Hampshire and co-chairman of Kasich’s campaign. Moreover, he said: “If Mitt Romney thinks that Ted Cruz is going to beat Donald Trump head-to-head in Rhode Island or Connecticut or New York, he’s fool.”
But Romney is right, said Liz Mair, a GOP strategist who leads anti-Trump political action committee Make America Awesome. Like most anti-Trump PACS, the group has avoided backing other candidates, but ran ads for Cruz in Utah and Arizona, since he had the best chances against Trump in those states.
“Much as there are Republican primary voters out there who would prefer Kasich to Cruz, there is simply no way to make the math work for Kasich,” Mair told The Cincinnati Enquirer. “There is a way to make it work for Cruz and thereby stop Trump, which is the most critical goal at this point in time.
“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
'Vote for Kasich is a vote for Trump'
Just last week, Romney was touting Kasich’s virtues.
The failed 2012 presidential nominee spoke out about an anyone-but-Trump strategy, urging Republicans to cast ballots for the candidate with the best chance of defeating Trump in their state. In Ohio, that meant Kasich, so Romney hit the trail in the Buckeye State last week and voiced robocalls for Kasich.
It wasn’t an endorsement. But what Romney did later that same week stung Kasich. Romney said he would vote for Cruz in Utah’s caucus Tuesday night, but then went further — urging Republicans not to vote for Kasich from now on.
“At this stage, the only way we can reach an open convention is for Senator Cruz to be successful in as many of the remaining nominating elections as possible,” Romney wrote on Facebook Friday. Of Kasich: “I would have voted for him in Ohio. But a vote for Governor Kasich in future contests makes it extremely likely that Trumpism would prevail.”
Romney later sharpened the stance, voicing robocalls for Cruz in Arizona and Utah that reportedly echoed Cruz’s insistence: “A vote for John Kasich is a vote for Donald Trump.”
Team Kasich erupted. Tweets suggested Romney was a “flip flopper” and implied he was playing a “Machiavellian game for self interest.” Advisers questioned whether Romney wants the nomination himself or somehow actually wants Trump to prevail. The Kasich campaign ran an ad of Romney’s remarks days earlier in favor of Kasich, making it seem as though Romney had endorsed Kasich.
“I mean, how does a guy one week say one thing and another thing (less than a week later)? That’s politics,” Kasich said Tuesday to Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade.
The Romney move kicked off a rough stretch for Kasich, when he had hoped to be riding a wave of momentum out of Ohio’s primary.
Graham, who had endorsed Cruz last week, on Sunday told CBS’ Face the Nation that Kasich was “hurting the cause” by campaigning against Cruz ahead of Tuesday’s Utah caucuses. Interviewers on politics shows repeatedly questioned Kasich’s motives for staying in the race and his prospects of winning the nomination.
“How do those polls in the fall look?” Kasich told Fox News’ Bret Baier on Monday in a nearly heated exchange. Polls nationally and in swing states routinely suggest Kasich would perform better against Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders than other Republican counterparts. “That’s what the delegates will take into consideration, who will win in the fall,” Kasich said.
“If you thought your candidacy were helping Trump, not hurting him, would you get out?” Chuck Todd asked Kasich on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.
“I'm running for president. This isn't a parlor game of who gets this or who gets that,” Kasich responded. “I have the experience and the record to lead this country. You know, and Chuck, if I didn't think that, I wouldn't be running.”
'Panic' an embarrassment?
Kasich's advisers have counseled keeping an eye toward the long primary calendar. By Tuesday night, they no longer insisted Kasich would win more moderate states remaining in the primary schedule. Instead, anti-Trump forces need Kasich in the race to deny Trump delegates in areas in which Cruz has little hope of doing so — even down to individual congressional districts, strategist John Weaver argued in a memo emailed to reporters.
Cruz will continue to struggle in the Northeast, where Kasich has overperformed, Weaver said. Cruz is likely to struggle in West Coast states, Weaver wrote. And in the Midwest, states such as Indiana and Wisconsin "closely resemble Ohio," Weaver said, adding exit polls showed Cruz would have lost to Trump in Ohio in a one-on-one race. "There are certain congressional districts in those states in which only John Kasich can defeat Donald Trump."
"Moving forward, Gov. Kasich is the key to our Party's hope of stopping Donald Trump and the potential disastrous consequences of his nomination," Weaver wrote Tuesday night. Then, questioning Romney and Cruz's motivations: "Assertions to the contrary are inaccurate. They are disingenuous attempts to mislead Republicans and hand the nomination to Donald Trump."
"Panicked establishment types embarrassing themselves," Weaver tweeted Tuesday.
Kasich's political action committee, meanwhile, is seeking to make the next GOP primary, in Wisconsin, about November. The PAC is running an ad in the April 5 primary state that suggests Republicans who want Kasich out of the race know he's actually the best to defeat Clinton in the fall.
Even as Cruz gains more steam with establishment Republicans, Team Kasich is scoffing about whether any of that matters in 2016.
“Establishment support didn’t help Jeb Bush, didn’t help Marco Rubio," Sununu said. "That’s not what’s driving this election cycle."
Kasich or Cruz? Republicans weigh in
Bobbie Kilberg, Northern Virginia businesswoman and GOP donor, who formerly backed Chris Christie, Bush and Rubio:
Kasich. “John Kasich has the best shot of beating Hillary Clinton. He is the candidate who best represents the mainstream Republican values that I hold. I think it’s good to have two viable candidates as alternatives to Trump who appeal to two different sets of the Republican population. Together they are more of a whole than separately."
David McIntosh, president of Club for Growth, whose conservative PAC has run anti-Trump ads. The group has been wary of Kasich:
Cruz. "Ted Cruz is a consistent conservative who will fight to shrink the federal footprint, while Donald Trump would seek to remake government in his desired image. That’s why the Club’s PAC is urging everyone in the conservative movement to join in this important campaign to elect Ted Cruz as President.”
U.S. Rep. Thomas Rooney, R-Fla., who had endorsed Rubio
Neither. “When Marco got out, I just said, 'I’m done with the whole thing.' … I wanted to unplug for a while." Of Kasich: "I love the guy. ... It’s just kind of hard to see what his path is.”
USA TODAY's Deirdre Shesgreen and Fredreka Schouten contributed.
