While John Kasich criss-crosses the map of Michigan in a flurry of last-minute campaigning, the Ohio governor must find it maddening that his standing in the polls also is all over the map.
Kasich awoke this morning to learn that a new Monmouth poll put his support in the state at 23 percent, trailing second-place Sen. Ted Cruz by just two points. More importantly, the survey detected a notable Kasich surge, with the governor running nearly neck and-neck with Republican frontrunner Donald Trump in Michigan in recent days.
Just as that survey was offered as evidence of a Kasich wave, a new poll released this afternoon provided a splash of cold water in the face. The Michigan State University poll showed the governor in a distant fourth (last) place at just 8.9%.
Kasich has campaigned extensively in Michigan, from Monroe to Marquette, in the hope of establishing his candidacy as the strongest competition for Trump in the Midwest. But many voters still know little about his background as a congressman and governor and Kasich’s bid to build momentum is constantly thwarted by the ups and downs in the polling.
Last week I suggested that Kasich’s campaign was imploding in Michigan, based on a poll that put him at 8 percent and a disastrously botched campaign stop where he was a no-show. A few days later, an American Research Group survey put Kasich in the lead at 33 percent, two points ahead of Trump in the Great Lakes State.
The ARG poll almost certainly was an outlier, as it showed the Ohio Republican doubling his support in just two weeks. But who’s to say what is flawed and what is on the mark?
Democrat Bernie Sanders finds himself similarly trying to stay grounded in the midst of a dizzying array of Michigan poll results over the past week that peg the gap between the Vermont senator and frontrunner Hillary Clinton at anywhere from 13 points to 37 points.
On the GOP side, Trump leads in all Michigan polling except the ARG survey. Yet, the chances of a brokered convention remain substantial as Trumpmentum has slowed in several states and his percentage of overall Republican votes cast is still at just 34%.
If Kasich wins the winner-take-all primary in his home state of Ohio next Tuesday and Sen. Marco Rubio wins his home-state, winner-take-all Florida primary on the same day, at the prevailing rate of vote-splitting among the four candidates Trump would then have to capture 67% of the votes cast in the remaining primaries to win a majority of GOP delegates.
This morning in Monroe, Kasich said he’s counting on the Republican convention, slated for his home turf in Cleveland, to convene without any candidate enjoying an outright majority. Even if he does not hold a plurality of the delegates, the governor seems to believe that he could prevail as the most respectable, least flawed potential nominee.
“The delegates will be smart, and they’ll figure it out,” Kasich said.
Chad Selweski is a freelance writer and blogger with a centrist point of view from suburban Detroit, Macomb County (population 870,000), home of the “Reagan Democrats.” Selweski worked as the political reporter for The Macomb Daily for 30 years. This is cross posted from his blog Politically Speaking.