In a year of increasingly implausible events, when Donald Trump (!) is the frontrunner, and Ted Cruz (!!) is the last savior of the Republican establishment, I still insist that John Kasich’s persistent presence is, in some ways, the single weirdest thing about the whole race.
He should have dropped out literally months ago. And yet, here he stands, undaunted by simple things like math, or reality, or the existence of states that aren’t Ohio.
Let’s review a couple fun tidbits about his increasingly futile position.
- Kasich is currently in 4th place in a three-man race. Marco Rubio, who dropped out over a month ago, still has a 30-delegate lead on him.
- That is in part because, during that month since Rubio left, Kasich has won exactly the same number of delegates as Charles Barkley, Giada DeLaurentiis, and me. Which is to say: zero.
- Kasich would need to win 130% of the remaining vote to win the nomination.
But here’s my favorite one of all. Kasich has, of course, only won one contest–in his home state of Ohio. And while Ohio is reasonably big, it’s 66 delegates aren’t quite enough to really do the trick. In fact, in order to put Kasich on track for the nomination, Ohio would need to be roughly 16 times bigger. That is: if Ohio had a population of about 190 million people, it would have just enough delegates to get him 50.1% of the currently-assigned number.
So what I’m saying is: one tiny change to the system and Kasich could be the frontrunner.