Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s long-shot presidential candidacy is on the line today as GOP voters go to the polls in a number of critical states, including his own.

While it is virtually impossible for Kasich, who has yet to win a single primary or caucus, to win the 1,237 delegates necessary to snag the GOP nomination by the time the party has its convention in July, he is banking on winning enough delegates to keep frontrunner Donald Trump from clinching it.

If neither Trump or Ted Cruz, the candidate with the second largest number of delegates, has the necessary majority, the nomination could be decided through a brokered convention, in which party elites, most of whom don't favor Trump nor Cruz, could opt for a moderate, compromise candidate, such as Kasich.

A Kasich nomination would be a dramatic twist in an election season thus far dominated by polarizing rhetoric from Trump and Cruz.

Not only has Kasich made a point of avoiding the toxic rhetorical melees that the other GOP candidates engage in, but he has also defended some moderate policies long-thought to be political suicide in a Republican primary, most prominently the Medicaid expansion that he implemented in Ohio through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).

Most Republican governors, including those with presidential ambitions, such as Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, rejected the money the federal government offered to expand Medicaid to those with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. Kasich, however, embraced the offer of federal funds and has vigorously defended his decision ever since.

“Put yourself in the shoes of a mother and a father of an adult child that is struggling,” he said when arguing for the expansion in 2013. “Walk in somebody else’s moccasins. Understand that poverty is real.”

While the conventional political analysis last year judged that position far too liberal to prevail in a GOP primary, this primary season has shown that commitment to party orthodoxy may not be as important as previously thought. Trump, in spite of his divisive statements on immigration and Islam, has a long record of left-leaning views on a number of issues, from abortion to international trade to health care, and hasn’t bothered walking many of them back.

And more importantly for Kasich, the Medicaid expansion appears to have helped make him a popular governor, who, unlike Walker and Jindal, has substantial support from independents and Democrats in his state. Some argue that the expansion could inspire a number of non-Republicans to vote in the GOP primary today to help Kasich keep Trump from getting the nomination.

Instant Insights /

Kasich defends Medicaid expansion, hopes for home state win

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