Kasich Ends Presidential Bid and May Never Run for Office Again

Ohio Gov. John Kasich officially suspended his campaign Wednesday evening, announcing his decision at a Columbus press conference, making Donald Trump, a Republican with no political experience, the presumptive nominee.

His wife Karen and twin daughters sat in the front row and watched as Kasich, tears in his eyes, ended his bid for the presidency on an abrupt note. Standing in a barn in Columbus, the state capital, he spoke of God and purpose.

“The people of our country changed me. They changed me with the stories of their lives,” he said. “As I suspend my campaign today, I have renewed faith, deeper faith, that the Lord will show me the way forward and fulfill the purpose of my life.”

Speaking on CNN earlier in the day, Trump said he'd consider Kasich as a vice president candidate. During the campaign, Trump, who had a nickname for all of his foes, called him "one for 38 Kasich," a dig at his failure to win any primaries other than Ohio's.

Kasich did not mention Trump during his brief speech.

When asked in February whether he'd accept a VP slot if offered, Kasich responded that he had "no interest."

"I'm my own man," he said. "I'm not going to take orders from these people. It's not what I do, it's not who I am."

Kasich canceled a scheduled Virginia news conference early Wednesday where reporters had already gathered, indicating his decision to withdraw came suddenly. He never left Columbus, in fact, though a plane was waiting for him.

Columbus Dispatch reporters Darrel Rowland and Jack Torry scored the inside skinny on the moments leading up to Kasich's decision not to get on the plane and call of his campaign.

There ... was a growing fear among those close to Kasich that by continuing the race, Kasich might be hurting his own brand as a national Republican. The advisers are convinced Trump cannot defeat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in November, which would vindicate Kasich’s claim that the party is nominating a candidate who cannot win the White House.

After Kasich and his party boarded their private jet, they finally concluded they should drop out of the race.

The decision, another Kasich confidante said, came after “honest, unfiltered conversations with people he has known for a long time.” He said he doubts that Kasich ever again runs for elective office.

Kasich, who turns 64 this month, was the last challenger standing after Tuesday night's Indiana primary. Late Wednesday morning, a senior adviser with the Kasich campaign told Politico Kasich would be dropping out of the race.

Kasich's only real chance of getting the Republican nomination was a contested convention in Cleveland.

Tuesday night, immediately after the networks projected Trump's Indiana win, a defiant Kasich issued a prepared statement outlining the five reasons why Kasich should be the nominee and would be the choice in a convention fight.

And Wednesday morning, Kasich's campaign posted this Star Wars-themed video to its Twitter account, which strongly suggested he was still in the race. The campaign also sent a fundraiser solicitation.

Kasich declined to attack his rivals throughout the primaries and for the most part avoided the mud-slinging and name-calling that Trump inspired. He tried to position himself as the grownup who could work across the aisle, the serious governor who understood the nation's problems.

But his message didn't inspire in a year where disaffected voters responded to Trump's clarion call of vague, populist rhetoric.

A Tuesday Rasmussen Reports poll conducted before Indiana's vote showed that a majority of Republican voters believed Cruz and Kasich should both drop out. Kasich didn't campaign in Indiana, choosing instead to campaign in Oregon.

During a late April stop in Oregon, Kasich acknowledged during a town hall he’d considered leaving the race. He said he’d asked his wife whether he should continue the campaign.

"She said, 'The people need a choice, and if you don't give them the choice, who will?' " he said. "And so I've decided to keep going. ... No one tells me what to do except my wife."

Now, the choice is Trump or Hillary Clinton.

This was Kasich's second run for president. He ran briefly in 1999. He entered the race in July 2015, after it became clear that Jeb Bush was struggling. No one anticipated Trump's appeal. Throughout the early primary season, many considered Trump's campaign a stunt.

“He ended up running against a different kind of candidate, a candidate that had really quite broad and idiosyncratic appeal to voters,” John Green, a University of Akron political science professor, told Bloomberg News. “It’s hard to fault the Kasich campaign for not anticipating that, because nobody else did, either.”

While anti-Trumpers were licking their wounds Wednesday morning, Kasich's own foes in Ohio were taking fresh aim at the two-term Ohio governor.

State Democratic Chairman David Pepper issued this statement.

“Since last March, Governor John Kasich has spent more than 200 days out of state, pursuing his presidential ambitions and ignoring the needs of the people of Ohio. Our state has trailed the national average in job growth for 40 straight months. Our public school system has plummeted from fifth in the nation to 23rd. Eight of our 10 biggest cities are economically distressed, and there are more Ohio kids living in poverty today than there were at the height of the Great Recession back in 2008. It’s time that Ohio had a governor who was actually doing something about all of that, rather than gallivanting across the country."

Reaction immediately began to permeate Twitter after Politico and the Associated Press broke the news Wednesday morning.

He will be missed. Kasich's fondness for foods on the campaign trail was a source of delight to reporters. And the people who served him food.

[Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons]