YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Gov. John Kasich deflected the opportunity Sunday to endorse Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, telling Meet the Press moderator David Gregory, “Everybody I either endorsed or was for dropped out or didn't run.”
During an Easter appearance on the NBC program, Kasich predicted that Ohio will be as “tight as a tick” as “it always is” for presidential contests.
“Ohio is a battleground state and it’s those independent voters, and whoever can tell them that they’re going to improve this economy, create jobs for families, will be the winner,” said Kasich, a former congressman and Fox News personality.
In response, the chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, Chris Redfern, issued a statement suggesting Kasich “adamantly refused” to back Romney.
“Despite [Romney's] full embrace of John Kasich’s disastrous attempt to end collective bargaining rights for teachers, firefighters and other public employees, Ohio’s governor is refusing to stand behind Mitt Romney’s toxic candidacy. Even someone as out of touch as John Kasich knows that Mitt Romney will hurt Ohio’s middle class and take our state back to the failed economic policies of the past,” Redfern said.
Romney scored a narrow win in Ohio’s March 6 primary, garnering 37.95% of the vote statewide compared with 37.07% for Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania.
Asked by Gregory whether he believed the nomination fight was over, Kasich responded, “You don’t want to judge that.”
“These people, they work their tails off trying to get to be president and trying to judge it and handicap the horse race is not what I’m comfortable with,” he said. “I haven’t endorsed. ... So I’ll wait till we have a nominee. ...The party will get its act together [and] it will be very competitive in the fall.”
Kasich briefly mounted a run for the 2000 presidential nomination before dropping out and endorsing the eventual GOP nominee, George W. Bush.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.