John Kasich Rejects a G.O.P. Call to Quit to Block Donald Trump

By TRIP GABRIEL MARCH 23, 2016

Gov. John Kasich of Ohio at a campaign rally in Milwaukee on Wednesday. Credit Scott Olson/Getty Images

Republicans desperate to stop Donald J. Trump from capturing the presidential nomination increased the pressure Wednesday on Gov. John Kasich of Ohio to quit the race, with Jeb Bush joining the growing number of party figures throwing their weight behind Senator Ted Cruz.

Mr. Kasich refused, saying that he, not the Texas senator, was the best option to stop Mr. Trump. But his argument was undercut by his dismal showings Tuesday in Utah and Arizona, where he won no delegates — as well as by the surprise endorsement Wednesday morning by Mr. Bush of Mr. Cruz.

Mr. Bush, who dropped out of the presidential race last month, is the latest mainstream Republican — following Mitt Romney and Senator Lindsey Graham — who is ideologically closer to Mr. Kasich, but whose embrace of Mr. Cruz is a strategic calculation that he has a better shot at stopping Mr. Trump.

In a statement, Mr. Bush called Mr. Cruz a “consistent, principled conservative who has demonstrated the ability to appeal to voters and win primary contests.”

“For the sake of our party and country,” he added, “we must move to overcome the divisiveness and vulgarity Donald Trump has brought into the political arena, or we will certainly lose our chance to defeat the Democratic nominee and reverse President Obama’s failed policies.”

Mr. Cruz himself pressed the issue Wednesday, a day after his resounding victory in Utah, where he won 69 percent of the vote, making him the first Republican candidate to win a majority in any state.

Mr. Trump took Arizona, while Mr. Kasich finished with even fewer votes there than did Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who dropped out last week after early voting had begun.

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“If this were a head-to-head race, a direct head-to-head race between me and Donald, I would feel very confident that we would get to 1,237,” Mr. Cruz said, citing the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination before the July convention. “The complicating factor is John Kasich. It is unclear if Kasich will bleed off just enough votes to give Trump victories and delegates in states he would not otherwise have won.”

Mr. Kasich ignored all calls to step down. He campaigned Wednesday in Wisconsin, where the next Republican primary will be held April 5, and his advisers argued that the race’s final stretch of 20 states, mostly in the Northeast, Middle Atlantic and the West Coast, put Mr. Kasich in a far stronger position than Mr. Cruz to halt Mr. Trump.

“When we get to Pennsylvania, we get to New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island — let me tell you, I drop out, Donald Trump is absolutely going to be the nominee,” Mr. Kasich said. “I don’t believe that Senator Cruz can come to the East and win.”

Charlie Black, a strategic adviser for Mr. Kasich, echoed the theme, stressing that moderate Republicans dominate in most of the remaining states, not those who identify as “very conservative” or evangelical, who have been Mr. Cruz’s base of support.

Mr. Kasich has won just one contest, Ohio, his home state. In the Northeast, he nearly beat Mr. Trump in Vermont, and came in second to Mr. Trump in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. But Mr. Cruz won Maine, where Mr. Kasich was a distant third.

Mr. Kasich is mathematically shut out from winning a majority of delegates before the last primaries, on June 7. His strategy is to emerge as a white knight at the national convention, under the assumption that Mr. Trump will arrive in Cleveland lacking enough delegates for a first-ballot nomination.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/24/us...rump.html?_r=0