COLUMBUS – As the race for the Republican presidential nomination turns to his home tu5rf of the Great Lakes and industrial Midwest, Ohio Gov. John Kasich picked up a muscular endorsement Sunday from movie actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Schwarzenegger, who was in Columbus for the annual Arnold Sports Festival, accompanied Kasich to a rally at the Franklin Park Conservatory where he described the former Congressman as an ”action hero” who “kicked some serious butt” in Washington.
Kasich is facing two key election days in the coming eight days: Tuesday in Michigan and three other states and March 15 in Ohio, Illinois, Florida and two other states.
Although he is not expected to win fellow candidate Marco Rubio’s home state of Florida, he has expressed confidence in his ability to win his own home state and its 66 convention delegates, denying them to front-runner Donald Trump.
“Our campaign is built for the long-term, it is growing in strength and it will ensure Governor Kasich is the candidate best positioned to arrive [at the Republican National Convention] in Cleveland and exit as the nominee,” wrote Kasich chief strategist John Weaver in a public memo Sunday. “And when he wins Ohio, Kasich clearly becomes the top non-Trump Republican.”
While one poll shows him leading the New York billionaire by a narrow margin in Michigan another shows Kasich running fourth, well behind Trump, in the state.