Rep. John Husted: Ohio Is Going To Be Close Between Kasich and Trump

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:

DOOCY: “Okay. John Husted is Ohio’s secretary of state and he is joining us from Columbus. Good morning.”
HUSTED: “Great to be with you.”
DOOCY: “So your reaction to how your man up governor Kasich did last night. He hasn’t won anything so far, although according to the latest fox news poll in Ohio, of Republicans, the governor is leading Donald Trump by five points.”
HUSTED: “Yeah. The governor did a great job. He’s appealing to people’s hopes and aspirations, not playing to their fears. That’s what Ohio voters like about him. And that’s why he’s doing well here so far.”
EARHARDT: “Now going into the convention in July, if there’s a brokered convention, what happens to Kasich at that point?”
HUSTED: “Well, you know, I don’t like to play ahead, you know, as the secretary of state we’re focused on Tuesday. We will all know as a nation a lot more about where the race stands after Tuesday. I believe that john Kasich is going to win Ohio. He’s — it’s going to be very close between he and Donald Trump. And I was just in Cleveland last night, people in Cleveland are very excited about hosting the convention. And we in Ohio though we’re focused on Tuesday. We’re not playing fast forward at this point.”
DOOCY: “John, though if you look at what happened in — for Donald Trump in Michigan for instance, Michigan is a lot like Ohio. A lot of manufacturing jobs. There’s a number of stories out today about how — there’s one story that talks about in the state of Pennsylvania, nearly 50,000 Democrats in Pennsylvania have switched over to the Republican party so they could vote for Trump. It’s all part of a ditch and switch effort that — that lifelong Democrats are moving over to Trump because they like his message when it comes to trade and manufacturing.”
HUSTED: “Yeah, you’re going to see some of that. There’s no question that john Kasich is doing great among the Republicans that always vote in the primary. The question is will Donald Trump be able to attract independents and crossover Democrats in sufficient numbers to overcome the popularity that John Kasich has among Republicans?”
DOOCY: “What do you think?”
HUSTED: “And I think it’s going to be close. I really do. When I’m out aar people that are going to vote Republican to vote for Donald Trump. And who are going to vote Republican to vote against Donald Trump as well. So you just don’t know what that mix will ultimately be, but there’s no question that he does have an appeal to many Democrats who are converting to vote in the Republican primary.”
EARHARDT: “Any chance he could become the VP?”
HUSTED: “John Kasich would be a great president, he’d be a great vice president. You’ve got to win Ohio if you want to win the country. And he should be — he should have a role in this at some point.”
DOOCY: “OK. And now it’s just a sprint to Tuesday. We’ll see if — we’ll know Wednesday morning.”
EARHARDT: “It will be an exciting day.”
HUSTED: “It will be.”
DOOCY: “All right, John Husted the secretary of state, the great state of Ohio, thank you so much.”
EARHARDT: “Thank you so much, John.”