Our Ask The Politics Guys question for this week comes from Jeff, in New York:
With Trump’s record turnout state after state, could the case be made that if he’s the nominee of the Republican Party they may lose moderate or “liberal” Republicans (if they still exist) but gain a huge segment of the population that until this point have not been active voters?
I love your podcast: we all listen to it on the tour bus!
I’m hoping as a resident of Ohio that you can shed some light on this: What is John Kasich doing wrong? It seems like he should be the natural GOP establishment nominee. When you consider all that is going wrong with Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, John Kasich should be the party’s solution. Do you have some insider information that the rest of America doesn’t have?
I think it’s more or less a case of bad timing. This time around, populist insurgent types are sucking up all the energy – on both sides. Had Kasich been running in a more traditional environment I believe he would have had a much better shot. What also hurt him this time out is that there was one huge establishment favorite at the beginning – Jeb Bush – who sucked up almost all the money. Added to that were a number of other establishment candidates – Walker, Rubio – all with stronger initial backing than Kasich.
Thanks for the reply.
Has he been “good for Ohio”?
Does he benefit by the GOP convention being held in Cleveland?
He seems to believe that a contested convention will work in his favor, but I don’t see how.
I think you’d have to go back to 1924 (democrats) to find a convention where one of the 2 front runners didn’t become the eventual nominee.
Jay and I would probably differ about whether Kasich has been good for Ohio – I’ll at least say that he hasn’t been as bad as some Republican governors. I don’t think that it helps him even a little bit that the convention is being held in Cleveland.