Ohio governor John Kasich warned on Sunday that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is at risk of losing his state in November, thanks to his “disturbing” campaign of divisiveness.

Kasich’s remarks came a day after it was reported that the leader of the American Nazi Party said a Trump victory in the presidential election would “be a real opportunity for people like white nationalists, acting intelligently to build upon that”.

Ohio is part of the rust belt, the group of swing states on which the Trump campaign is concentrating much of its effort against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. Kasich has declined to endorse Trump and did not attend the Republican national convention in Cleveland in July, at which Trump was officially nominated.

Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union, Kasich refused to commit to voting for Trump and predicted that Trump would only win the parts of Ohio “where people are really hurting”.

“It’s difficult, if you are dividing, to be able to win Ohio,” he said, adding: “I don’t think people want to live in a world of angry. They want to believe there is a better tomorrow.”

Kasich’s remarks spoke to evidence of strong support for Trump among white working-class voters nationally. In its report quoting remarks by Rocky Suhayda on his own radio show a week ago, Buzzfeed quoted the Nazi Party leader as saying: “I’m gonna project that I believe that Trump is going to win the election this November.

… I think it’s gonna surprise the enemy, because I think that they feel that the white working class, especially the male portion of the working class, and with him, his female counterparts, have basically thrown in the towel. Given up hope of any politician again standing up for their interests.”

Kasich said “of course” he would not vote for Clinton, but answered “no” when asked if he had decided not to vote for Trump either, adding: “We still have time. That’s something I think about, but not a lot.”

Asked what Trump would have to do to get his vote, Kasich said: “So much water has gone over the dam now, it’s becoming increasingly difficult.” What he was seeing from the Trump campaign, he said, was “very disturbing and alarming to me”.

“I wish I could be enthusiastic. I cannot be. I don’t know what is going to happen in the end.”

Many observers think the election increasingly likely to end in Trump’s defeat. He has slipped further behind in the polls, and a national survey published on Sunday showing him trailing Clinton by eight points. The ABC/Washington Post poll put Clinton at 50% among registered voters, ahead of Trump at 42%. In a similar poll taken just before the party conventions in July, Clinton held a four-point lead. The realclearpolitics.com poll average gives Clinton a seven-point advantage.

In the ABC/Washington Post poll, voters were canvassed after the Democratic convention. Clinton has likely been boosted further by the controversy over Trump’s attack on the Muslim parents of a fallen American soldier, who criticized him in a powerful speech at the Democratic gathering in Philadelphia.



The poll closed out a disastrous week for the Trump campaign in which the nominee also initially refused to support prominent Republicans in re-election bids; made contentious remarks about sexual harassment; claimed to have seen a video of a US cash payment to Iran which in fact did not exist; was reported to have asked if the US could use nuclear weapons; and saw press reports question the immigration history of his Slovenian-born wife, Melania.

Kasich said he watched the speech at the DNC made by Khizr Khan, with his wife Ghazala at his side, in which he spoke of the sacrifice and patriotism of Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed by a car bomb in Iraq in 2004.

“Captain Khan is a hero,” Kasich said, adding that as governor, Ohio families who have lost loved ones in Iraq and Afghanistan visit him in his office. Such experiences are “excruciatingly difficult”, he said, adding that he told such bereaved families that he lost his own parents to a car crash. “Let’s not compare,” he said, “but I have seen the black hole … the mourning.”

Kasich also confirmed as “accurate” a report that Trump’s son, Donald Jr, called one of his senior aides in order to offer Kasich the vice-presidential spot, which the governor turned down.

Elsewhere, the former CIA director Michael Morell, who endorsed Clinton on Friday, appeared on ABC’s This Week on Sunday to repeat his accusation that Trump has been manipulated by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

Morell said: “In Putin’s mind, I have no doubt that he thinks he [Trump] is an unwitting agent to the Russian Federation. Donald Trump didn’t even understand that Putin was playing him … and he has manipulated people much smarter than Trump.”

Also appearing on ABC, the Trump surrogate and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani insisted there was still “every opportunity” for the Republican nominee to win the White House. Asked about the latest opinion polls, Giuliani said he remembered President George HW Bush being 16 points behind Michael Dukakis in September 1988, and going on to win. Bush actually led Dukakis at that point in the race, according to Gallup.

“Let’s calm down,” he said, adding that he expected to see “a lot more” of Trump reaching out to Republicans he has snubbed or fallen out with, as he did to Paul Ryan, John McCain and Kelly Ayotte on Friday night. The former House speaker and 2012 Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich said Trump’s belated endorsements showed that he “should have done that in the first place”.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Gingrich also said Trump’s tax-cutting economic plans as currently laid out do not add up.

“Of course not,” he said. “No candidate’s numbers add up.”