The drumbeat from Marco Rubio supporters for John Kasich to get out of the Florida senator's way in the GOP presidential race increased Tuesday after a new poll showed the governor trailing Donald Trump in Ohio. But Kasich scoffed at the notion.

The drumbeat from Marco Rubio supporters for John Kasich to get out of the Florida senator's way in the GOP presidential race increased Tuesday after a new poll showed the governor trailing Donald Trump in Ohio.

But Kasich scoffed at the notion.

"I would hope they would be clearing the decks for me," he said of Rubio's camp in speaking to reporters after addressing the Georgia legislature in Atlanta. "I've spent the least amount of money and am rising in the polls. I can win my home state. Why would I clear the decks for them? They ought to be consolidating around me."

Kasich trails Trump by 5 points in Quinnipiac University�s poll, but the governor insisted: "We're going to win Ohio, there's no question about it. ... The last thing I worry about is how we're going to do in Ohio."

Peter Brown, assistant director of the Connecticut university�s poll, said, �Ohio is the whole ballgame for Gov. Kasich. If he can�t win his own state, he�s obviously not going to win the presidential nomination.�

At the same time, Brown said Kasich�s 5-point deficit shouldn�t be interpreted as a sign of overall campaign weakness because the governor probably will win his home state on March 15.

But the deficit might hurt Kasich�s strategy of relying on Ohio as a safety net that frees him to campaign in other states such as Illinois and Missouri that also vote on that day, the first for winner-take-all state primaries.

Behind Trump�s 31 percent and Kasich�s 26 in the Ohio poll are Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at 21 percent, Rubio at 13 percent and retired Dr. Ben Carson at 5 percent.

However, before Ohio's primary are contests in several other states, including the "SEC primary" that includes Georgia on Tuesday and Kasich�s must-do-well contest in Michigan on March 8.

Rubio holds the upper hand over Kasich in recent endorsements.

A Washington-based Republican close to the presidential race � who would talk only on the condition of anonymity because of his position � said March 15 could be dangerous on two fronts: If Kasich loses Ohio and Rubio loses Florida, Trump basically becomes a shoo-in. "People are really scared Trump is going to win. You're starting to hear a chorus of 'the hour is late,'" the source said.

"I do think Kasich and his people are having to answer a lot of questions this week," the source added. "It's almost like there's a burden of proof to show why they're not enabling Trump somehow. That's tough and unfair to him in many ways."

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, isn�t willing to pull the plug on Kasich�s candidacy.

�It�s not as though he�s been given a strong signal by the electorate that his time has passed,� Sabato said. �On the other hand, he has to make a very tough decision. Does he really want to take a chance on losing his own state?�

Sabato said Kasich �would damage Rubio considerably� by remaining in the race. �It�s getting awfully late. Many in the Republican Party feel it�s already too late to try to figure out some way to survive in November."

Kasich has picked up backing in recent days from two former GOP governors, William Weld of Massachusetts and Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, who is also a former director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Also opting to back Kasich are a pair of billionaires: hedge-fund manager Julian Robertson and financier Stanley Druckenmiller.

Ridge said Tuesday on MSNBC�s "Morning Joe" that "frankly, record trumps rhetoric. And while I think it's very important that Marco Rubio and Sen. Cruz have contributed as senators, compared to what governors have to do in order to achieve, particularly in the area of being politically accountable for outcomes, there's no doubt in my mind that being a governor is far, far better preparation for the ultimate responsibility as president of the United States."

Amy Tarkanian, a former Nevada GOP chairwoman who supports Kasich, wrote: "Despite his 'glorious', shaky-at-best second-place standing in South Carolina, Rubio took home ZERO delegates at the end of the day, and it�s questionable that he is even able to win his home state of Florida, which Trump is probably going to steal from him."

The Quinnipiac Poll of 759 likely Ohio Republican primary voters by live interviewers calling land lines and cellphones Feb. 16 through Saturday has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

Aaron Gould Sheinin of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution contributed to this story.

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