Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Sunday that the likelihood he’ll enter the race for the Republican presidential nomination “looks pretty good.”
Kasich set up a political action committee to test the waters two weeks ago. He told Fox News Sunday that he’s “not going to be able to raise the kind of money that Jeb Bush is raising, but we want to be able to raise enough that we can be competitive.”
“The results here in Ohio give me, I think, a lot of credibility for our team to be able to move forward,” he said.
Kasich said he’s set to make his third trip to New Hampshire, and he’s also visited states like South Carolina that play a key role in the presidential nominating process.
Kasich has more high-level experience in politics than most candidates, starting with his role as the House’s budget chairman during the late 1990s, when the United States enjoyed several years of budget surpluses.
But he’s also taken a number of positions that are problematic on the right: Kasich expanded Medicaid under President Barack Obama’s health care law, and he has supported Common Core education standards and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
His pitch is that he won re-election in Ohio last year with nearly 64% of the vote, carrying 86 of the state’s 88 counties and outperforming most Republicans there among labor unions, minorities and more.
“You want to be President? You better win Ohio,” Kasich said.
Told by host Chris Wallace that he sounds like he’s in the race, Kasich said that’s not his goal.
“I’m not sure I want to sound like a candidate. I just want to sound like an American who’s trying to make this country a heck of a lot stronger,” he said.
“Not a (typical) politician … but somebody that’s going to go in, do the job, not pay attention to all the special interest groups, change the status quo, shift power out of Washington and get America on the track again with strength in our military as well,” Kasich said.