Ohio Gov. John Kasich is fighting to stay alive in the Republican presidential nomination contest in five states at once, bolstered by a second-place finish last week in New York.
Mr. Kasich’s campaign had hoped for a breakthrough in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Illinois, and Michigan only to be disappointed. New York — while a delegate blow-out for billionaire Donald Trump, who received nearly 90 of the 95 delegates — provided a reset for the beleaguered Kasich campaign.
Mr. Kasich finished second in New York, with 25.1 percent to 60.4 percent for Mr. Trump and 14.5 percent for Sen. Ted Cruz, and picked up at least four delegates.
“New York was a big step forward for John Kasich and for our campaign,” strategist John Weaver said in a fund-raising appeal.
And while Mr. Cruz still owns many more delegates and has much more money in his war chest than Mr. Kasich, they do share one category as a result of New York: Both are mathematically locked out of winning the nomination outright, while Mr. Trump can still win outright.
On Tuesday, Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich will try to reduce Mr. Trump’s delegate haul in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.
The following week will be a battle for Indiana, a neighboring state where the Kasich campaign is opening campaign offices and scheduling town hall meetings.
Since Friday and continuing through Tuesday, Mr. Kasich had scheduled campaign appearances in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Indiana.
“Trump’s chances without a doubt have improved [because of his strong victory in New York], but if they get to a contested convention Kasich’s chances have without a doubt improved relative to Cruz. Cruz’s stock is falling,” said David Cohen, a political science professor with the University of Akron Bliss Institute for Applied Politics.
Since March 15, when he won the Ohio primary — his only No. 1 finish — Mr. Kasich has seen his national polling numbers rise from 17.5 percent to 21.8 percent, according to an average of polls calculated by realclearpolitics.com.
In comparison, poll numbers for Mr. Cruz range from 26 percent to 30.6 percent. However, in the last two weeks, Mr. Cruz has dropped from a peak of 32.9 percent, while Mr. Kasich has continued to ratchet upward in the same period.
Mr. Trump now has 845 delegates, but still needs to get to 1,237 delegates to win the nomination.
Mr. Cruz’s and Mr. Kasich’s only hope of getting the nomination is to prevent Mr. Trump from nailing down the requisite delegates by the last primary elections on June 7.
Anti-Trump forces
Cheering them in that quest is a loose confederation of conservative commentators, Republican leaders, and an independent super PAC called Our Principles PAC, which has spent more than $7 million trying to undermine Mr. Trump’s momentum. Mr. Kasich’s campaign has complained that Our Principles has been quietly helping Mr. Cruz.
Not so, said Our Principles spokesman Tim Miller.
“I don’t understand why they are complaining about this,” Mr. Miller said, citing Our Principles expenditures on behalf of Mr. Kasich where it helped their cause in Ohio, New York, and now Maryland. “Our emphasis is on preventing Trump getting to 1,237. [Winning at the convention] is going to be on the campaigns more than us.”
Our Principles PAC contends that Mr. Trump faces a “a nearly impossible” task to secure the 1,237 delegates before the convention.
Of course, the Trump crew sees it differently. Mr. Trump has the potential to mop up hundreds of delegates over the 15 states that have yet to vote. And even if he doesn’t, there are approximately 200 unbound delegates on whom he could turn his sales skills.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a publication of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, is forecasting that Mr. Trump will finish with 1,222 delegates — close enough that he can acquire enough unbound delegates to get the nomination on the important first ballot.
“His path to winning a delegate majority remains open, but it is perilous,” said the article written by Kyle Kondik, managing editor.
Mr. Kondik, a former journalist in Elyria and the author of a forthcoming book The Bellwether: Why Ohio Picks Presidents, said he believes Mr. Trump has a chance to win the first ballot and Mr. Cruz on the second or third ballot. But after that, Mr. Kasich’s chances are no better than any other qualified Republican.
“You could compile a list of white knight candidates. Kasich would be on it,” Mr. Kondik said.
Polls show Mr. Cruz barely in second place in Pennsylvania, with Mr. Kasich in third. In Connecticut and Maryland, Mr. Kasich is narrowly in second place in the polling.
Mr. Trump is heavily favored in winner-take-all Delaware so the other candidates are no longer bothering with the First State.
Pennsylvania presents an interesting situation. Its 71 delegates are awarded in two groups: 17 to whoever gets the most votes statewide, and remaining 54 by congressional district. Those 54 are officially unbound, which means that Mr. Trump could sweep the state, but the 54 delegates who get elected could vote for anybody they want on the first ballot at the convention July 18 in Cleveland.
Political observers in Ohio say Mr. Kasich’s chances remain slim but real.
“If they get to a contested convention John Kasich is in the best position to win out of all those candidates because of the view that he would have the best shot against Hillary Clinton in the general election,” Mr. Cohen said.
Mark Weaver, an Ohio Republican political consultant who is not affiliated with Mr. Kasich’s campaign, said the opportunity for Mr. Kasich remains what it has been since it became obvious he wasn’t going to win the nomination outright.
“If vote after vote after vote starts happening, concerns about how many delegates each candidate had will fade away and delegates will look for who can win in the fall and that’s Kasich’s selling point,” Mr. Weaver said. “If Trump wins on the first ballot then all of our discussions have been academic in nature.”
Mr. Weaver also said something that Mr. Kasich insists is not part of his political ambition — a position below the level of president.
“He’s doing all he can do right now. He has to be relevant and he has to have some significant bevy of delegate votes that he can deliver to somebody to get something done. Job One is to be president. Job Two, though he won’t say it, is to be vice president or secretary of state or something else,” he said.
Contact Tom Troy: tomtroy@theblade.com or 419-724-6058 or on Twitter @TomFTroy.
First Published April 24, 2016, 4:00 a.m.