Republican presidential candidate John Kasich said Monday he will beat GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump in Mr. Kasich’s home state of Ohio and that he’s better positioned in the Buckeye State than Sen. Marco Rubio is in Florida.
“I will beat Donald Trump in Ohio,” Mr. Kasich, the Ohio governor, said on CNN’s “New Day.”
He said “getting down and wrestling with him in the mud” is not the way to beat Mr. Trump.
“The way you overcome him is with your accomplishments and with your vision,” Mr. Kasich said. “And if that doesn’t work, we move on.”
He said nobody’s pressuring him to get out of the race.
“Marco Rubio is trailing in Florida by 17 points. You know what? Why aren’t they telling him to get out and get behind me? I have a better chance of winning in Ohio than he does in Florida,” Mr. Kasich said.
Ohio and Florida both vote on March 15 and are winner-take-all states, giving both Mr. Kasich and Mr. Rubio hope that they can quickly accumulate a big chunk of delegates by notching wins in their home states.
As for the contests in 11 states on Tuesday of this week, Mr. Kasich said that Mr. Trump is going to “probably win everything,” with Sen. Ted Cruz possibly winning in Mr. Cruz’s home state of Texas.
“We’ll do OK but not great, but this was never our plan,” Mr. Kasich said. “We have a campaign plan, and then we campaign our plan, and our hope now and our belief is that we will go north and you will begin to see things change.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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