Last night Donald Trump rolled to a big win in Indiana and less than 24 hours later his two competitors for the GOP nomination are no longer in the race. Last night it was Texas Sen. Ted Cruz who dropped out after last night’s big loss.
Today, Ohio Gov.John Kasich dropped his presidential bid, according to a senior campaign adviser, one day after Trump became the presumptive nominee.
He will make an announcement about his campaign today at 5 p.m. in Columbus, Ohio, his campaign said. Kasich abruptly canceled a news conference planned for Wednesday morning outside Washington, D.C.
The Ohio governor had long ago been mathematically eliminated from clinching the GOP nomination outright but had hoped to emerge as a consensus candidate at a contested convention.
Kasich only managed to win one contest – his home state of Ohio – during the primary season, and still lagged in the delegate race behind Marco Rubio, who dropped out in mid-March.
The Ohio governor was known as “The Republican most Democrats could vote for.” In 17 different polling cycles Kasich beat Hillary Clinton in general election polls.
Kasich had said Tuesday night that he would keep fighting, but after Cruz suspended his campaign and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus declared Trump the presumptive nominee, Kasich apparently decided to end his bid.
In a year of the outsider, Kasich ran a solid positive campaign and he refused to get into a fight with either Trump or any other of the other candidates. He will leave the field with the best resume of any one in the GOP field.
Kasich served in Congress where he balanced the budget, worked on both sides of the isle and dealt with the President Bill Clinton administration. He then turned his sights on returning to Ohio where he was elected governor and been successful there as well.
But in the new normal Kasich was too tame for the GOP voters and he will head back to the state house in Columbus.
