COLUMBUS, Ohio — Two weeks ago, Gov. John Kasich was facing pressure to quit the Republican race, to clear the establishment field for Marco Rubio as the Florida senator sought to rally Republican voters in mounting a challenge to stop Donald Trump.
Now, with Rubio’s campaign unraveling, Kasich has a chance to seize his place as the main establishment alternative to Trump, one who can soak up Republican votes among people determined to find a more electable candidate to challenge Hillary Clinton should she become the Democratic nominee.
But it could be a tough fight. Kasich has failed to win a single nominating contest, and missed a big opportunity to gain attention this week when he placed third in Michigan, slightly behind Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, coming up short in a state the governor had lavished with attention.
On Tuesday, he will have a final chance to establish himself as a viable contender in a shrinking field, when his home state, Ohio, has its winner-take-all primary — one of the biggest prizes on the electoral map. His campaign is betting that his strong organization in the state will propel him to victory, making him a force as the contest turns to more moderate Northern states, including a slew of Northeastern states that hold their contests in April.
As he campaigned Wednesday in Illinois ahead of Tuesday’s primary there, Kasich cast Rubio aside, arguing that he was now engaged in a three-man race. He told voters that he, Trump and Cruz were “dead even going into the last half of this whole match.”
“I don’t mean to say anything to disparage Marco,” Kasich told reporters later in the day. “But what I will say is, it’s starting to turn our way.”
Signaling Kasich’s rising fortunes, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Tuesday had Kasich in third place nationally, ahead of Rubio by 2 points in the Republican field, though the difference was within the margin of error.
In another sign of Kasich’s relevance, he has been deemed worthy of attacking.
A new ad by Trump’s campaign, aimed at voters in Ohio, skewers Kasich on several fronts — highlighting his time at Lehman Bros., branding him as an “absentee governor” and describing his presidential bid as “failing.”
And a super PAC supporting Rubio, Conservative Solutions PAC, is airing an advertisement in Florida and Illinois that criticizes Kasich’s record in Ohio. “More spending, more taxes,” the ad says, before concluding with this rhyme: “That’s the basic on Kasich.”
Even if Kasich can supplant Rubio as the leading establishment candidate, he faces an improbable — but not impossible — road to the nomination. He is counting on Trump not winning enough delegates to secure the nomination before the party’s convention in July, leading party leaders there to settle on a candidate.
In interviews at recent campaign stops, voters expressed admiration of the governor, but had a sober view about his chances.
“I feel sorry for him,” said Ray Possehl, 75, who went to see Kasich in the Chicago area Wednesday and lamented that he had not received more recognition.
“He’s not talking about his big hands or his small hands,” he added. “He’s talking about what he’s accomplished.”
On Friday, a top aide to Rubio urged the senator’s supporters in Ohio to vote for Kasich, saying the governor was the one candidate who could beat Trump in the state. But Kasich’s team is counting on a loss by Rubio in Florida on Tuesday.
Although that would put Trump closer to amassing enough delegates to secure the Republican nomination, the Kasich campaign believes it is more important for the field to shrink to three candidates — with Rubio’s exit from the race clearing the way for establishment-aligned Republicans to coalesce around the governor, leaving him in prime position as the nominating fight moves to Northern states.
“This is what we always planned, was to head north,” Kasich said this week. “We didn’t set the schedule, but I think the schedule’s moving our way.”
Still, the campaign faces a determined rival in Cruz, whose victories in Kansas and Maine on Saturday, as well as in Idaho on Tuesday, helped him make the case that he alone had repeatedly proved he could beat the Republican front-runner. Kasich acknowledged Cruz’s recent strength after the weekend contests, but also raised doubts about how he would fare in later contests.
“You got to run all across America,” he said.
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