Will John Kasich primary Trump?

[Joe Biden is your president. Deal with it.]

It sure looks like he's moving the chess pieces early. 

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Probably, but I wouldn't bet on it or vote for him.

[TarHeelDem]

No, I don't think Trump will be in office when the 2020 primaries roll around.

[The_Doctor]

Hopefully he does. President John R. Kasich sounds great to me.

[Mr. Morden]

The probability that Kasich in particular will primary Trump has got to be less than 50%, but the probability that *someone* who has held either federal of statewide office will primary Trump is actually pretty high, IMHO.  If not Kasich, then Amash, or Rand Paul, or someone else.  Heck, even if it's not anyone who's held public office before, but is instead, say, Evan McMullin, that would still get more publicity than any of the nobodies running against Obama in the 2012 Democratic primaries, if only because there will still be plenty of disaffected people in the conservative punditocracy like Bill Kristol who'll tweet about whoever it is who's challenging Trump in the primaries.  That's a dynamic that just didn't exist for Obama in 2012 or Bush in 2004.

I do wonder, then, if Trump is challenged by an Amash or a Kasich, or even a McMullin, what will be the stance of Trump-skeptical Republican politicians like McCain, Graham, Sasse, Baker, or former GOP politicians like Jeb Bush and Christine Todd Whitman?  Will they endorse his GOP opposition?  Will they be neutral in the primaries but endorse Trump in the general?  Or do they go full #NeverTrump and once again refuse to even back Trump in the general election?

[krazen1211]

He will get cucked.

[Kantakouzenos]

I don't know if it will be John Kasich, but if Trump ends up being an ineffectual or unpopular president, it's pretty likely that he will get a serious primary challenger, sort of like Carter and Johnson had.

[Hoosier]

Kasich is the most likely to primary Trump (at least at this point).  If the Trump approvals are low enough, particularly with Republicans, I think he'll go for it. He will not have anything to lose.

[RI]

Kasich is certainly acting like he's planning a run.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

If Trump is wildly unpopular, he is vulnerable, but Pierce is the only sitting President to get primaried.  Fun fact, 100% of the time when the President gets primaried, his party still wins.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

If Trump is wildly unpopular, he is vulnerable, but Pierce is the only sitting President to get primaried.  Fun fact, 100% of the time when the President gets primaried, his party still wins.

-Woodrow Wilson? Carter? Ford?

[Mr. Morden]

If Trump is wildly unpopular, he is vulnerable, but Pierce is the only sitting President to get primaried.  Fun fact, 100% of the time when the President gets primaried, his party still wins.

I thought "primaried" just means that someone runs against you in the primary.  That's how I interpreted the question.  Are you saying that "primaried" implies that the primary opponent actual defeats the incumbent in the primary?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

If Trump is wildly unpopular, he is vulnerable, but Pierce is the only sitting President to get primaried.  Fun fact, 100% of the time when the President gets primaried, his party still wins.

I thought "primaried" just means that someone runs against you in the primary.  That's how I interpreted the question.  Are you saying that "primaried" implies that the primary opponent actual defeats the incumbent in the primary?

I take it to mean a successful defeat of a sitting incumbent. So Reagan 1976, close but no cigar. Rubio  2010, nope, since Crist was sitting governor and not Senator. I wouldn't use it in two incumbent races like Kucinch Kaptur 2012.  It is OK if they switched parties; Sestak 2010 counts. Also OK if it was at a convention, Mike Lee 2010 counts there. And Ned Lamont and Joe Miller still count even though they lost to the incumbent in the general election.

[Mr. Smith]

See Ted Kennedy 1980 if he does.

[Inmate Trump]

I'd vote for him.

[Sir Mohamed]

I doubt it, but I wouldn’t rule it entirely out since he has nothing to lose anymore. Nevertheless, such a challenge will go nowhere. The today’s GOP is mainly Drumpf’s party of right-wing populists and not moderate-conservative pragmatists.

[Bojack Horseman]

If Trump is wildly unpopular, he is vulnerable, but Pierce is the only sitting President to get primaried.  Fun fact, 100% of the time when the President gets primaried, his party still wins.

-Woodrow Wilson? Carter? Ford?

Bush 41 with Pat Buchanan?

[Vosem]

Kasich is clearly planning a run; he's been spending more time in New Hampshire than here in Ohio of late. As for how he'd do, I could see him winning a few early states (the new Governor of New Hampshire is a close political ally of his, for instance), but it's difficult for me to see him actually knocking off Trump, especially if (as is likely) someone else also runs; Amash has been telegraphing his intent for a while. If Kasich is both still running and still looks like a viable possibility by the time Ohio runs around, I'll definitely vote for him, though. He's been a good Governor and he'd be a good President.

[Mr. Morden]

Kasich is clearly planning a run; he's been spending more time in New Hampshire than here in Ohio of late.

Well, he is going to New Hampshire as part of his book tour in April.  But other than that, has he actually been there since election day?  I'm not aware of any NH trips by him since Nov. 8.

I know he was visiting a lot in 2016, even after he dropped out of the ’16 race.  And that’s because he was presumably planning to run for prez in 2020 back when he thought Clinton would win this time around.  So were Cotton, Cruz, Rubio, etc.  But most of those folks are now putting their presidential campaign plans on hold, because they don’t want to challenge an incumbent Republican president.  Kasich may be different.  The fact that he’s going to New Hampshire as part of his book tour is at least a sign in that direction, but it could also just be him cashing in on his goodwill there.  Similarly, Weaver setting up an outside group to promote Kasich’s ideas might be more Weaver pushing Kasich than a sign of Kasich’s actual ambition.

So yeah, he’s dropped some hints of interest, but challenging an incumbent president of your own party is a big deal, and I’m not sure Kasich’s there yet, or that he’ll ever be there.

[Vosem]

Kasich is clearly planning a run; he's been spending more time in New Hampshire than here in Ohio of late.

Well, he is going to New Hampshire as part of his book tour in April.  But other than that, has he actually been there since election day?  I'm not aware of any NH trips by him since Nov. 8.

I know he was visiting a lot in 2016, even after he dropped out of the ’16 race.  And that’s because he was presumably planning to run for prez in 2020 back when he thought Clinton would win this time around.  So were Cotton, Cruz, Rubio, etc.  But most of those folks are now putting their presidential campaign plans on hold, because they don’t want to challenge an incumbent Republican president.  Kasich may be different.  The fact that he’s going to New Hampshire as part of his book tour is at least a sign in that direction, but it could also just be him cashing in on his goodwill there.  Similarly, Weaver setting up an outside group to promote Kasich’s ideas might be more Weaver pushing Kasich than a sign of Kasich’s actual ambition.

So yeah, he’s dropped some hints of interest, but challenging an incumbent president of your own party is a big deal, and I’m not sure Kasich’s there yet, or that he’ll ever be there.

I was referring to his string of visits at the end of 2016, and that those seem likely to continue. Kasich's confrontations with the pro-Trump (not even really that so much as "not opposed to Trump") elements within the state party organization in Ohio also show, at least to me, that he views himself as a political opponent of the President's, in a way that virtually none of the other 2016 candidates have been doing. 

[Mr. Morden]

Kasich is clearly planning a run; he's been spending more time in New Hampshire than here in Ohio of late.

Well, he is going to New Hampshire as part of his book tour in April.  But other than that, has he actually been there since election day?  I'm not aware of any NH trips by him since Nov. 8.

I know he was visiting a lot in 2016, even after he dropped out of the ’16 race.  And that’s because he was presumably planning to run for prez in 2020 back when he thought Clinton would win this time around.  So were Cotton, Cruz, Rubio, etc.  But most of those folks are now putting their presidential campaign plans on hold, because they don’t want to challenge an incumbent Republican president.  Kasich may be different.  The fact that he’s going to New Hampshire as part of his book tour is at least a sign in that direction, but it could also just be him cashing in on his goodwill there.  Similarly, Weaver setting up an outside group to promote Kasich’s ideas might be more Weaver pushing Kasich than a sign of Kasich’s actual ambition.

So yeah, he’s dropped some hints of interest, but challenging an incumbent president of your own party is a big deal, and I’m not sure Kasich’s there yet, or that he’ll ever be there.

I was referring to his string of visits at the end of 2016, and that those seem likely to continue.

To be clear though, as I said, all of those 2016 visits came before Nov. 8th, so they came at a time when Kasich presumably thought Clinton would most likely be the incumbent president in 2020, not Trump.  Yes, he's going back there in April as part of his book tour, but I think it's too early to say whether they'll continue as a regular thing for the next couple of years.

Sure, he's being much more oppositional to Trump than most other Republicans currently holding elected office.  But whether he's actually going to turn that into a primary challenge....I think it's too early to say.

[Medal506]

Why not he has nothing to lose. He'll never be president and he basically has no political future after 2019 unless of course he goes to a last resort and a very desperate attempt to stay relevant. If he does he obviously would get crushed and after the 2020 Republican primaries thats basically it for Johnny Kasich. He'll become even more irrelevant than George Pataki and Jim Gilmore

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

If Trump is wildly unpopular, he is vulnerable, but Pierce is the only sitting President to get primaried.  Fun fact, 100% of the time when the President gets primaried, his party still wins.

-Woodrow Wilson? Carter? Ford?

Bush 41 with Pat Buchanan?

I use primaried to mean you got defeated. Otherwise, it just sounds ridiculous to say that Bill Wyatt primaried George W Bush by receiving 10,847 votes in the 2004 Republican primary.

[Fuzzy Bear]

He will, but he won't get anywhere.  He'll do half as well as Ted Kennedy did against Carter in 1980.  At best.

[RINO Tom]

Hopefully he does. President John R. Kasich sounds great to me.