Kasich: I’ll stay in until at least the OH primary

John Kasich says he will ultimately beat Donald Trump for the GOP nomination, beginning with a primary victory in his home state on March 15.

In the meantime, Kasich will try to keep his head above water after Super Tuesday, as well as a March 8 primary in his neighboring state of MI – and also fend off reports that he is being pressured to exit the Republican presidential race.

The New York Times reported that Romney had urged Kasich to quit and let the Republican party coalesce around a candidate other than front runner Donald Trump.

“You know I just finished my second demolition derby”. We’ve discussed the fact that he’s barely a candidate and has no business being on the debate main stage but, at every opportunity, he and his staff have assured the American people that he’s been in it to win.

As the struggle among Trump, Cruz and Rubio has become increasingly vitriolic, Kasich is sticking with his “I’d like to teach the world to sing in ideal harmony” campaign style, saying Republicans can not stop Trump by “wrestling in the mud with him”. “I’m getting more pressure from people who are begging me, ‘Please don’t get out of this race'”.

Kasich is trailing Trump 31%-26% in his homestate, accoridng to the latest Quinnipiac University poll.

OH governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich is in Gulfport, Mississippi for a town hall meeting Wednesday.

Kasich was interviewed as John Weaver, chief architect of his campaign, told reporters he expects Trump to carry MI, a state where the Kasich campaigned originally had high hopes of winning. “And we’re going to give it our best effort and we think we’re going to do well there”. But that’s not a good sign for Kasich as he’s very popular in OH and can’t show dominance in his own state.

Kasich has since apologized, commenting to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that “I’m more than happy to say I’m sorry if I offended somebody out there, but it wasn’t meant to be offensive”. “I think about some of the ones who I have most admired in my lifetime…I never heard Ronald Reagan raise his voice or personally attack anybody that he was engaged with”.

When asked what he thought of the tenure of the race thus far, Kasich said he believed the “process is being lowered” by all of the insults and screaming that has occurred during debates and on the campaign trail between the GOP candidates. “But, if Kasich could beat Trump in OH, you subtract 66 delegates from Trump’s 1,246 – leaving him at 1,180, and just short of the nomination”.

Kasich is scheduled to spend next week in Massachusetts, Vermont and MI.