Gov. John Kasich (R) said that the Republican Party has “never been my master” and that “all of my options are on the table” for 2020, Politico reports.
Asked if he was ruling out running against President Trump as an independent, Kasich told reporters, “All of my options are on the table. But I’m a Republican, I’m a conservative, and I just want to add to the public debate and do a good job.”
“I’m sick of politics.”
— Gov. John Kasich (R), quoted by the Associated Press.
Member feature
Keep reading with a Political Wire membership
Members get Taegan Goddard’s analysis, every feature on the site and no ads.
Already a member? Sign in
Gov. John Kasich’s (R) inner circle “is gearing up for a possible presidential run in 2020 — actively weighing the prospect of a Republican primary challenge to President Donald Trump against the feasibility of a long-shot general election campaign as an independent,” Politico reports.
“And there’s one consideration driving their thinking perhaps more than any other: what some of his advisers consider the very real, maybe even likely, possibility that Trump doesn’t run again — by choice or not — or that the president becomes so politically hobbled by late next year that the political landscape fundamentally shifts in Kasich’s favor. That’s one reason Kasich has yet to decide whether to pursue an independent bid or a primary challenge.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer: “A pro-Second Amendment section of John Kasich’s website was removed Sunday, after the Republican governor appeared on CNN and said reasonable gun control measures should be enacted following last week’s deadly Florida school shooting.”
Gov. John Kasich’s (R) “brand is built around the idea of ‘two paths’ for the Republican Party: one for center-right pragmatists like him, the other for flamethrowers like Donald Trump,” BuzzFeed News reports.
“But as the Ohio governor considers a rematch with Trump in 2020, he is weighing two more-tactical paths. Does he challenge Trump, the sitting president, in primaries where Kasich won’t find much institutional GOP support? Or does he leave the party, go down a route littered with ballot-access hurdles and fundraising challenges, and run as an independent?”
“Sources close to Kasich’s political team have told BuzzFeed News in recent weeks that both options are in play.”
President Trump tore into Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), a GOP rival and potential 2020 primary challenger, at a RNC dinner last night, Politico reports.
“The president went after the Ohio governor several times by name, according to three people who were present. The president mocked Kasich, who is being termed-out of office and fell short in the 2016 GOP primary, and described him as one of his loudest and most relentless critics.”
Gov. John Kasich will return to New Hampshire in April, the Concord Monitor reports.
The news “will once again fuel rumors that he’s considering another White House bid in 2020.”
New York Magazine: “Kasich 2020 is not just a media proposition. Kasich is a sitting governor exploring a run against a president of his own party — a starkly unusual circumstance. He retains a skeletal campaign staff, and they are helping him to think through his options: Should he run as a Republican in the primaries or as an Independent in the general election?”
“A primary run is plausible, strategists say, if Trump’s approval ratings among Republicans fall below the high 70s, where they’ve been, and Democrats prevail during the midterms, signaling a loosening of the stranglehold of the far-right base on the party. A third-party run is optimal if the major-party candidates represent ideological extremes. Kasich has not declared he’s running, and everyone I spoke to preempted their hypotheticals with caveats. In the Trump era, two years is an eternity…. But among the party’s intelligentsia, all agree there is a common wish that the White House be occupied by a different Republican.”
Gov. John Kasich (R) “is taking a subtle but significant step toward a possible 2020 presidential campaign. The Republican governor of Ohio met privately Thursday with several national security and foreign policy experts,” BuzzFeed News reports.
“The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share details, described the discussions in Columbus as the first in a series of meetings on domestic and foreign policy and aimed at keeping Kasich current in global affairs.”
Gov. John Kasich “tried to shut down reports that he is considering an independent presidential bid in 2020 with Colorado’s Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper,” NBC News reports.
Said Kasich: “Look, ‘Kasich-Hickenlooper,’ first of all, you couldn’t pronounce it and second of all, you couldn’t fit it on a bumper sticker.”
When told that those words weren’t a denial, Kasich flatly said, “the answer is ‘no,’ okay.”
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) sidestepped questions about whether he thinks President Trump should face a primary challenge in 2020, Politico reports.
Said Kasich: “I don’t have any plans to do anything like that. I’m rooting for him to get it together. We all are. I mean, we’re only, like, seven months into this presidency.”
Sources close to Gov. John Kasich (R) tell NBC News that after the Charlottesville violence there is growing sense of “moral imperative” to primary President Trump in 2020.
Interestingly, a new Marist poll finds that Republicans and Republican leaning independents overwhelmingly support President Trump over a hypothetical challenge from Kasich, 64% to 23%.
“There may be some philosophical, you know, kind of textbook disagreement. But when you sit in a room and you say to people, ‘Should we strip coverage from somebody who’s mentally ill?’ I’ve never heard anybody say yes.”
— Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), quoted by the New York Times.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) said that “he could accept a gradual phaseout of the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, but only if Congress provides states with more money than the House health care bill included and more flexibility to manage the health program for the poor,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Kasich’s statement could prove significant as Senate Republicans try to find near unanimity on a bill to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement. His position points to a compromise that moderate Senate Republicans could embrace — but that could challenge the chamber’s most conservative members.”
“I’m rooting for him to do well, for the same reason I root for a pilot on my airplane to do well. Okay? He’s the president.”
— Gov. John Kasich (R), quoted by the Washington Post, while downplaying speculation he might challenge President Trump in a Republican primary.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) said that he’s opposed to the House Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, the Washington Examiner reports.
Said Kasich: “I wouldn’t be surprised if they pass something, but I’m not for it.”
Of President Trump, he added: “I happen to believe he doesn’t really care what the plan is.”
David Nather: “Take it for what it’s worth — this is coming from one of Trump’s former rivals. But Kasich still has a high profile in the GOP, and the more Congressional Republicans struggle to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the more likely it is that other Republicans could suggest it’s time to try something else.”
Ohio Gov. John Kasich said that President Trump ought to “eradicate” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his top lieutenants in a surgical military strike designed to give rise to a more benign leadership in Pyongyang, the Washington Post reports.
“Kasich stopped short of explicitly recommending that U.S. forces assassinate North Korea’s leaders, but what he described would be a military and intelligence exercise.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
More about Taegan Goddard →