Kasich vows to win Ohio, do well in Illinois.

By John Dempsey, WLS-AM News

(CHICAGO) Republican Presidential Candidate and Ohio Governor John Kasich was on WLS this morning, predicting he will win his home state of Ohio, and it’s winner-take-all 66 delegates on Tuesday.

Kasich told “The Big John Howell Show” he will also do well in Illinois, and rejected the notion that our polarized country does not want to buy his moderate message.

“I am gonna win Ohio, in some of the suburbs around Chicago we’re tied for first, we’re rising in Illinois, we’re second. No, I don’t think this country’s too polarized to hear a good message, a message of what we can do to turn things around, not at all.”

The campaigns of Kasich and Florida Senator Marco Rubio have been struggling, and both men will most likely have to pull out of the race if they do not win their respective states of Ohio and Florida on Tuesday.

Rubio, in an effort to deny delegates to Donald Trump, has gone as far as to suggest his supporters in Ohio vote for Kasich, with the hope that Kasich would return the favor and encourage his backers to vote for Rubio in Florida.

However Kasich told WLS he will not do that. “How do you go on the ballot, when you have people that support you, and you’re running for President, and you tell people ‘vote for somebody else?’ Wouldn’t that be kind of crazy?”

Kasich also blamed Trump for the violence we have seen on the campaign trail, including at Trump’s canceled Chicago rally this past Friday, at the University of Illinois-Chicago Pavilion.

LISTEN to John kasich speak with “Big” John Howell on WLS-AM 890 here.

“I said he created a toxic atmosphere, which I believe that he has done. That comes about from dividing people, and incendiary remarks, that’s not a good thing. There’s no question that some people actually showed up and probably wanted to cause trouble. But when you pit one person against another, when you say a quote like ‘I’d like to punch him in the face, I’d like to knock the crap out of them, maybe he should have been roughed up’, I mean these are quotes. I mean, come on. You’re running for President of the United States. You can’t use language like that. It’s wrong. What is your positive vision? How are you gonna fix things? Don’t divide people. That’s not what makes America strong.”

In recent days Kasich has backed away from a promise he made to support Trump if he is the Republican nominee. On WLS this morning he would not answer the question, saying “He’s not gonna be the nominee, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens here.”