Ohio Governor Kasich mulls challenging Trump in 2020
Gov. John Kasich ‘seriously look at’ running for president in 2020
The Governor of Ohio, United States (U.S.), John Kasich, has said that he is considering challenging President Donald Trump in the 2020 primary election of the Republican Party.
Kasich who suspended his 2016 presidential bid in May of that year, only to win in his home state of Ohio after consistently lagging far behind Trump in all major polls said his decision was necessitated by the current disturbing political climate in the country under the Trump leadership.
He said he has a slew of advisers analyzing his prospective candidacy every day.
“All options are on the table,” Kasich said, including running as an Independent if he cannot secure the Republican Party nomination.
“We look every day; I have a team of people who look every day at the factors that go into a consideration like that. We assess it, and at some point I will make a decision.”
Kasich said Republicans performed well in Ohio during the 2018 midterm elections and got “smashed” elsewhere because the GOP in Ohio used a different “road map” — one focused on “hopefulness.”
Republicans last month secured a veto-proof majority in the Ohio State Legislature, and won not only the gubernatorial contest but all four down-ticket races.
Trump won Ohio by nearly 10 points in the 2016 presidential race, and several political analysts now say the state — owing in part to changing demographics — is no longer the swing state it historically has been.
“You can’t ignore your allies. You can’t just do things on your own — ‘America First,’” Kasich said, referring to the president’s campaign slogan and stated principle of governance.
He noted that primary challenges can severely damage sitting presidents, even though primary challengers themselves have not won the presidency in the modern era.
Kasich said: Pat Buchanan’s 1992 race against President George H.W. Bush for the Republican nomination demonstrated the influence of the party’s hard-right wing, and Ted Kennedy’s 1980 bid against President Jimmy Carter deeply divided Democrats just as Republicans united behind then-nominee Ronald Reagan.
According to Kasich, Trump has erred by not pushing a prospective deal this summer to provide border wall funding in exchange for a pathway to citizenship for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients.
“A president can’t just get everything they want.
“I don’t understand why he didn’t make the deal. Give me a couple billion for the wall and in exchange for that we let the DACA people stay,” Kasich said.
But House Republicans had overwhelmingly rejected that arrangement.
The sprawling, compromise GOP immigration bill that would have provided a path to citizenship for young illegal immigrants while directing $25 billion for the construction of a border wall failed in the House by a 301-121 vote, despite encouragement from the president for Republicans to support it.
Kasich concluded by criticizing Trump’s announced withdrawal of troops from Syria, saying that while the decision may have fulfilled a campaign promise, it was “precipitous” and came too quickly without proper warning to allies in the region.
“The implications of what all this means long-term for our foreign policy, for our domestic agenda, is really up in the air.
“It concerns me a great deal,” Kasich added.
