With Marco Rubio Out, Ted Cruz Confronts a New Foe in John Kasich

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By MATT FLEGENHEIMER and THOMAS KAPLANMarch 16, 2016

HOUSTON — After months squaring off against Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, presuming him to be the chief obstacle to a one-on-one showdown with Donald J. Trump, Senator Ted Cruz on Wednesday emerged from the latest Republican primaries with a new foe who was actually there all along: Gov. John Kasich of Ohio.

The transition seemed a bit jarring for all involved. The men had scarcely said a cross word about each other before Tuesday night’s contests.

There had been little need. While Mr. Cruz, of Texas, has moved to consolidate support among evangelical and Tea Party voters, Mr. Kasich has made a play for party moderates, outlasting establishment rivals like Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and Mr. Rubio, who dropped out Tuesday after losing his home state.

Now, it seems, Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich will get to know each other a bit better. And their opening gambits were to argue that the other has no chance of becoming president .

“There are only two people who actually have a viable path to the nomination,” Jason Johnson, Mr. Cruz’s chief strategist, told reporters. “There’s one spoiler in the race: John Kasich.”

Mr. Johnson likened Mr. Kasich’s run to some quixotic ambitions of his own. “It’s like my dream of making the senior tour on the P.G.A. or my dream of being a Nascar driver,” he said. “It ain’t going to happen.”

Mr. Kasich countered on Wednesday by suggesting that Mr. Cruz, along with Mr. Trump, was too extreme to attract wide support in the fall.

“Neither of those guys can win a general election,” he told reporters after a town hall-style event outside Philadelphia. “So maybe they’re spoiling it for the Republican Partyand for the conservative movement.”

So far, little of the sparring has focused on substance. Late Tuesday evening, as election returns still trickled in, senior Cruz aides seemed unsure how they might proceed against Mr. Kasich.

Jeff Roe, Mr. Cruz’s campaign manager, suggested the senator stood to gain little from attacks on his unlikely rival.

“That’d be the wrong move to start engaging with John Kasich,” Mr. Roe said, before adding that he might send “a calculator” to the Kasich campaign to signal the governor’s large delegate deficit, more than 250 behind Mr . Cruz. (Mr. Cruz himself is more than 250 behind Mr. Trump.)

But hours later, Mr. Johnson hinted that a look at Mr. Kasich’s résumé might be in order.

“He has an interesting record that’s gone without examination,” he said coyly.

A spokesman for Mr. Kasich, Chris Schrimpf, welcomed an examination of the governor’s record both in Ohio and during his time in Congress. “Let’s compare Governor Kasich’s record when he was in Washington toTed Cruz’s,” Mr. Schrimpf said. “What is Ted Cruz’s greatest accomplishment?”

If Mr. Cruz does plan to escalate hostilities, he seems likely to highlight Mr. Kasich’s decision to expandMedicaid in Ohio under the Affordable Care Act, a decision that puts him at odds with many conservatives.

Mr. Kasich has largely avoided offering direct criticism of other candidates, and his positivity is now at the center of his message, so it is not likely that he will go after Mr. Cruz in a direct way. Still, he has offered hints of how he views the senator’s campaign promises. At a town hall event in Michigan last week, he asked audience members to raise their hands if they believed that a year from now, after the election, the Internal Revenue Service would not exist and the country would have a 10 percent flat tax — two planks of Mr. Cruz’s campaign.

“Not one hand has gone up!” Mr. Kasich observed.

Mr. Kasich’s team believes that Mr. Cruz’s message will not be well received in more moderate states that have yet to vote, like New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where Mr. Kasich was born and raised. “John Kasich’s story began in Pennsylvania,” read a flier at his event on Wednesday, showing the Pittsburgh skyline.

Aides to Mr. Cruz said he planned to campaign aggressively across the electoral map, despite the assumption that his message of conservative purity and religious faith could be a difficult fit in places like the Northeast. “If you think we’re ceding New York because Donald Trumphails from Queens and lives in Manhattan, that would be a mistake,” Mr. Johnson said.

First, attention will turn to Arizona and Utah, which vote on Tuesday. With Mr. Trump poised to do well in Arizona, Mr. Cruz’s hopes are higher in Utah, powered by an endorsement from Senator Mike Lee. But Mr. Kasich, who plans to campaign there on Friday and advertise in the state, could undercut Mr. Cruz’s effort to sweep the state’s delegates with a majority of the vote.

The odds of either man catching Mr. Trump before the convention are long. And now it appears both candidates will have one less chance to prove themselves against him. Mr. Trump said Wednesday morning that he would skip a debate scheduled for Monday in Salt Lake City.

Mr. Kasich’s team signaled he would not attend without Mr. Trump.

Mr. Cruz revived an attack he tried in January, when Mr. Trump missed a debate in Iowa. “#DuckingDonald strikes again,” Mr. Cruz posted on Twitter. “Tell @realDonaldTrump to debate.”

But by the afternoon, given the possibility of extremely low turnout, the debate was canceled.

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Cruz, Rubio tensions flare at Trump-less GOP debate | Fox News

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Tensions between Republican presidential hopefuls Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio erupted over immigration and more Thursday night during the Fox News/Google debate, as the campaigns tried to put aside their battles with front-runner Donald Trump -- "the elephant not in the room” who chose to boycott -- and focus on the issues, and their Democratic rivals.

While the Iowa debate assumed a somewhat more subdued tone without Trump, Cruz and Rubio got into a barbed dispute over “amnesty” in the second half of the debate.

Rubio accused Cruz of falsely describing himself as the most conservative candidate, and changing his position on immigration.

“This is the lie that Ted’s campaign is built on,” the Florida senator said. “Throughout this campaign, you’ve been willing to say and do anything in order to get votes.”

He said Cruz used to talk about bringing immigrants out of the shadows, and, “now, you want to trump Trump on immigration.”

The Texas senator flipped the allegation, saying it is Rubio who vowed to fight against “amnesty” and then reversed course for political expediency.

“I like Marco, he’s very charming, he’s very smooth,” Cruz said, before accusing him of siding with donors in the immigration debate.

The exchanges came at the final Republican debate before the Iowa caucuses on Monday.

For the first time, Trump was not on the debate stage, instead hosting a veterans event nearby in Des Moines. He boycotted the Iowa showdown over complaints about Fox News and co-moderator Megyn Kelly.

His absence gave other candidates more time, though, to engage the issues and each other. 

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie interjected during the Rubio-Cruz spat to tout his status as a Washington outsider. 

"This is why you need to send someone outside of Washington to Washington," he said. "Stop the Washington bull and let's get things done." 

Cruz and Rubio also tangled over who would be tougher on the Islamic State, and the rancor even spilled out into tensions between the candidates and the moderators.

At one point, Cruz complained about the moderators urging the candidates to attack each other, and half-jokingly threatened to “leave the stage” if they asked another “mean question.”

Rubio mocked those comments, telling the moderators: “First of all, I’m not leaving the stage no matter what you ask me.”

Rubio also questioned Cruz’ record on supporting the military, moments after Cruz said he’d “utterly and completely destroy ISIS.”

“The only budget that Ted has ever voted for was a budget that Rand Paul sponsored that brags about cutting defense spending,” Rubio said.

Cruz, though, doubled down on comments that he’d “carpet bomb” the enemy, saying that's what was done in the first Iraq war.  

Meanwhile, the candidates dispatched with their Trump comments at the very beginning of the debate.

After Cruz was asked to “address the elephant not in the room,” he quipped: “I’m a maniac, and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly … now that we’ve gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way.”

Jeb Bush, who used to take the brunt of Trump's debate attacks, also joked about Trump’s absence. “I kind of miss Donald Trump. He was a little teddy bear to me. We’ve always had such a loving relationship … during these debates and in between.” 

Bush later sparred as well with Rubio on immigration. Bush said Rubio sponsored the “gang of eight” bill that allowed for legalization, but “then he cut and run” because it wasn’t popular with conservatives. 

The debate marked a particular opportunity for Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul – who did not qualify for the recent Fox Business Network debate but returned to the prime-time stage Thursday after making the cut this time. 

"It's great to be back," Paul said Thursday. 

Paul, despite struggling with low poll numbers, seemed to have plenty of supporters in the audience, as his responses drew applause from the crowd several times. He also took shots at both Cruz and Rubio on their records. 

Echoing Cruz' criticism, he said Rubio made a deal with Democrats on immigration and suggested he was weak on border security. 

At the same time, Paul suggested Cruz was being disingenuous by claiming he was never for "amnesty." He said Cruz has an "authenticity problem." 

Also on stage Thursday night were retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.  

Carson’s standout moment seemed to come at the end of the debate, when he used his closing statement to recite the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution.

“Please think of our founding fathers as you listen,” Carson asked. After reading aloud the Preamble -- including its call for a “more perfect union” – he said, “Folks, it’s not too late. Enough said.” 

Kasich pitched himself as a problem-solver, once again pointing to his record as Ohio’s governor.

“At the end of the day, I’m an optimist, because I’ve seen so many things get accomplished in my lifetime, and we can do it again together,” he said.  

Four candidates also participated in the earlier, 7 p.m. ET debate: Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum; and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore. 

Santorum and Huckabee, following the evening debate, attended the veterans event that Trump hosted nearby. 

After Trump’s rally, Fox News released a statement saying Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes had three brief conversations with the Republican candidate Thursday about possibly appearing at the debate.

“Trump offered to appear at the debate upon the condition that FOX News contribute $5 million to his charities,” a Fox News spokesperson said. “We explained that was not possible and we could not engage in a quid pro quo, nor could any money change hands for any reason. In the last 48 hours, we've kept two issues at the forefront — we would never compromise our journalistic standards and we would always stand by our journalist, Megyn Kelly. We have accomplished those two goals and we are pleased with the outcome.” 

The polls in the Hawkeye State show essentially a two-man race for first between Trump and Cruz in the final stretch. Rubio has been holding steady in third position, while Carson’s numbers have been on a downward course in recent weeks.

After Iowa, the candidates head to New Hampshire, where Trump also leads but several other candidates are jockeying for position behind him.

The debate Thursday was moderated by Fox News anchors Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace. 

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