Tag Archives: Gov. John Kasich

Rep. Barton to Retire;
Major Ohio Moves

Texas Rep. Joe Barton (R-Ennis) | Facebook

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 4, 2017 — Veteran Texas Rep. Joe Barton (R-Ennis), a former Energy & Commerce Committee chairman, has apparently taken the advice he was reportedly receiving from many local Republican leaders and activists advising him not to seek re-election. Barton, recently coming under attack when his nude picture taken during a previous consensual sexual relationship surfaced on Twitter, announced late last week through social media that he will end his 34-year congressional career when the current Congress adjourns.

Barton had already filed to run in 2018, but will now withdraw his paperwork prior to Texas’ Dec. 11 candidate filing deadline. We expect to see several Republicans come forward to run in what will be the first open 6th District contest since 1984. Immediately, Tarrant County Tax Assessor Ron Wright announced that he would enter the newly open Republican primary.

The 6th District performs as a safe Republican seat beginning in the Arlington area of Tarrant County, which is the population anchor, before continuing southeast to annex Ellis and Navarro Counties. President Trump carried the 6th, 54-42 percent, down a bit from Mitt Romney’s 2012 performance of 58-41 percent against President Obama.

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Pence In, Tiberi Out

Greg Pence, brother of VP Mike Pence, announces he is running for Indiana’s open 6th District.

By Jim Ellis

Oct. 23, 2017 — Greg Pence, brother of Vice President Mike Pence, is now a congressional candidate in Indiana. Greg Pence made public late last week his intention to run for the open 6th District, the seat his brother held for 12 years before being elected governor (see video above). He is attempting to replace Rep. Luke Messer (R-Greensburg/Muncie), who is running for Senate. Before he entered the congressional race, Greg Pence was serving as Messer’s finance chairman for the Senate campaign.

The 6th District is safely Republican, voting 68-27 percent for the Trump-Pence ticket, after supporting Mitt Romney with a 60-37 percent split. Back in 2008 when then-Sen. Barack Obama (D) won Indiana in the year that he was first elected president, Sen. John McCain still carried the 6th with a substantial 55-44 percent spread.

Under this backdrop, the vice president’s brother begins his congressional quest in a campaign where he will very likely only need to win the Republican nomination to secure his seat in the US House. And, with the VP’s help, particularly with his national finance network, it will be very difficult for any Republican candidate to keep Greg Pence from winning the primary.

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Renacci to Run in Ohio;
Angle in Nevada

By Jim Ellis

March 23, 2017 — The open Republican gubernatorial primary to succeed term-limited Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) is producing an all-star political lineup. This week, another prominent GOP politico entered the impending contest, making the May 2018 primary a major political event.

Joining Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor and attorney general and former US Sen. Mike DeWine as a gubernatorial candidate is four-term US Rep. Jim Renacci (R-Wadsworth). The congressman officially announced that he will enter the statewide campaign, a move that had been speculated upon for months. It is further expected that Secretary of State Jon Husted will also soon declare his gubernatorial candidacy.

Renacci was first elected to the House in the 2010 Republican wave. He defeated then-freshman Rep. John Boccieri (D) by 11 percentage points. Two years earlier, Boccieri had converted the seat for the Democrats after 36-year veteran Congressman Ralph Regula (R-Canton) retired.

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Trump’s Makeover

By Jim Ellis

May 6, 2016 — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) departing the 2016 presidential campaign on successive days unofficially awards Donald Trump with the Republican presidential nomination. Though it will still take the New York real estate mogul until the final primary day (June 7) to commit the 1,237 delegates he needs for a first-ballot nomination victory, he is, nevertheless, now beginning a general election campaign effort against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Cruz’s abrupt about-face on previous statements that he would not leave the race is a bit curious. With the ebbs and flows of this campaign, it would not have been surprising to see yet another switch in campaign momentum. In mid-April, for example, it was Trump who was floundering and on the political ropes just before the New York and eastern regional primaries launched him back on the final course toward the nomination.

It is clear, however, that what looked to be coming Cruz winner-take-all victories in Nebraska, South Dakota, and possibly Montana, along with surely accumulating more delegates in the remaining proportional states of Oregon, Washington and New Mexico, the Cruz campaign analysts obviously came to the conclusion that they could not overcome Trump.

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The End; Sanders, Again; State Results

By Jim Ellis

May 5, 2016 — Speculation as to whether the Republicans would host their first contested, or brokered, presidential nominating convention since the 1940s ended when Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) suspended his presidential campaign after a bruising loss in Indiana.

Though the party nomination is still not officially, mathematically clinched, and won’t be for some time, Cruz’s departure followed a day later by Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) as an active candidate, leaves Donald Trump a solid month to campaign against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, boxing her in from the right while she must continue to court her party’s left base in order to become the nominee while the Democratic race still is ongoing. It will be an important period for Trump, since he will have a distinct short-term strategic advantage.

Indiana, as Trump has been saying since his major victory in the eastern regional primary April 26, proved to be definitive. The new unofficial nominee racked up a 53-37-7 percent victory over Cruz and Kasich, and possibly scored a backdoor winner-take-all result with a sweep of the statewide vote and possibly all nine Indiana congressional districts.

The CDs, which produce three delegates apiece for the candidate placing first in the particular domain, are going at least eight strong for Trump. The 3rd District (Rep. Marlin Stutzman-R) was not fully reported at this writing and Trump led Sen. Cruz here by only 926 votes. If he holds the 3rd, Trump will have secured a winner-take-all 57 delegates, far beyond the 39 he needed to establish a first ballot track.

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Nomination Tuesday – Yesterday

By Jim Ellis

May 4, 2016 — There will be no floor fight in Cleveland. With Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) exiting the presidential race last night after Donald Trump’s backdoor winner-take-all victory in Indiana, the nomination battle has effectively ended. Sen. Cruz’s campaign suspension announcement means that only Ohio Gov. John Kasich remains as an active Trump opponent.

Though Kasich has still yet to exit the race, his ability to stop a Trump first-ballot victory is non-existent. Long ago, Kasich was mathematically eliminated from a obtaining his own first-ballot win, and he now trails Trump by 870 delegate votes. To stay on the first ballot track before last night, Trump needed 39 delegates coming from Indiana. He blew away that metric by winning the statewide vote, all nine congressional districts, and 87 of 92 counties, which earned him all 57 delegates in Indiana’s winner-take-all by congressional district apportionment formula. Cruz realized such a margin and the momentum it was generating made denying Trump a pre-convention victory highly unlikely.

Ironically, it is now Sen. Bernie Sanders (I/D-VT), winner of last night’s Indiana Democratic primary popular vote, who says he will wage a floor fight at the national convention in Philadelphia. This will not happen, either.

Despite Sanders’ 52.5 percent win in Indiana, and carrying 74 of the 92 counties, it is still former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who leaves the state with a 46-44 delegate margin thanks to the Super Delegates. Needing only 19.4 percent of the outstanding delegates in the 14 remaining states and territories going into last night, Clinton easily exceeded her delegate quota projection and will clinch the nomination on June 7.

Below are the latest unofficial delegate results:

REPUBLICANS

CANDIDATE	ESTIMATED DELEGATE COUNT
Donald Trump	1,023
Ted Cruz	570
Marco Rubio (out)	173
John Kasich	153
Others (out)	16
Uncommitted	92
Needed to win: 1,237	Remaining: 445

DEMOCRATS

CANDIDATE	REGULAR DELEGATES	SUPER DELEGATES
Hillary Clinton	1,702	527
Bernie Sanders	1,406	39

Total Clinton: 2,229
Total Sanders: 1,445
Needed to win: 2,383
Remaining: 1,114

• Delegate Count Source: Unofficial — The Green Papers website (for both parties)

• The Democratic totals include some Super Delegates who have announced their support for a candidate even though their states have not yet voted.

One Poll Has Cruz Up

By Jim Ellis

May 3, 2016 — Seven polls, all taken between April 13-28 testing today’s important Indiana Republican presidential primary, report similar information; yet one stands alone. Six studies find Donald Trump leading from between two and 15 points over Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), but one actually finds the opposite result and the margin isn’t even close.

The stand-alone survey comes from the Mike Downs Center at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) and projects the Texas senator to be holding a 45-29-13 percent lead over Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. The methodology, however, appears flawed. The sampling period stretches over too long a period for a small respondent group of 400 likely Republican primary voters.

So, should this data be ignored? Not entirely. The six pro-Trump polls from April 18-27 (sample sizes range from 400 to 645) produced a wide range of responses suggesting that the electorate is fluid. The latest two surveys come from NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist College (April 26-28; 645 likely Indiana Republican primary voters) and the American Research Group (April 27-28; 400 likely Indiana Republican primary voters). Each shows Trump holding a substantial lead, but the surveys differ greatly relating to Gov. Kasich’s standing.

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