WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6, 2016
Kasich Plays the Spoiler
A Commentary by Fran Coombs

Why is John Kasich still in the race for the Republican nomination?

His shutout in yesterday’s Wisconsin Primary shows there’s no groundswell of support for a non-angry, traditional Republican candidate in the race despite all the bad things he, the media and other prominent GOP officials have had to say about Donald Trump. There’s a perception that Ted Cruz is picking up some momentum, while Trump’s momentum is slowing. But Kasich? Forget it.

Exit polls in Wisconsin found that stop-Trump voters moved to the Texas senator, not the Ohio governor, with Kasich underperforming in several key demographics compared to his showing in the March 15 primaries.

The Kasich campaign, with predictable political spin, claims that Cruz’s win over Trump now shows that the GOP race is ”wide open.” With neither of the top two contenders likely to have enough delegates to claim the nomination on the first ballot, the Kasich team sees things as ripe for maneuvering their candidate into the nomination at the convention. Kasich himself says an open convention will be “fun” and “cool.”

The problem for Kasich is that GOP voters don’t want a brokered convention: 51% say the candidate who enters the convention with the most delegates should be the nominee. Just 34% think the delegates at the convention should choose the nominee by voting for whomever they want.
Unfortunately for him, too, Republicans don’t have a superdelegate set-up like Democrats do that would allow the party leadership to steer the nomination to its preferred candidate.

Even Karl Rove, the dean of Republican political operatives who lost his candidate when Jeb Bush flamed out, doesn’t think nominating someone who can’t win primaries is a good idea. Rove, however, is no fan of either Trump or Cruz, so he now suggests that perhaps the party needs “a fresh face” as a nominee. Translation: We’ll sacrifice our guy (Kasich) if you sacrifice your guys (Trump, Cruz). [READ MORE HERE]