Donald Trump’s health-care Waterloo two weeks ago was a moment made to order for Ohio governor John Kasich, and he did not let it go unexploited. “This cannot go away,” he told host Dana Bash during a State of the Union interview with CNN. “There are too many people’s lives that are at stake if we fail to be able to reform this program. This is serious, serious stuff, and the idea that it’s a quaint notion that Republicans and Democrats ought to work together—that’s how broken that city is.”

Trump ran and won on the idea that Washington was broken, and that “I alone can fix it.” But with health care mired in the swamp he spoke of draining, Kasich has been putting down unmistakable markers for a possible 2020 challenge to Trump while subtly reworking his brand along Trumpian lines—the consummate outsider, but competent. Since Kasich exited the G.O.P. primary in May of last year, he wrote a book rumored to be critical of Trump; buttressed his international accolades; and thrust himself to the forefront of the trade and health-care debates currently roiling Washington. And despite the reality that Kasich is closing in on the end of his second and final gubernatorial term, his campaign and super PAC apparatuses remain in operation, and two of his long-time aides launched a nonprofit political organization to champion recurring themes from the governor’s 2016 campaign in January.

The Ohio politician has on various occasions pushed back on the narrative that he is planning another White House bid. “I don’t see it, I just don’t see it,” he said during his recent CNN interview. But when pressed by Bash on whether he would “ever” run for president again, Kasich hedged his denial. “You don’t close the door on anything,” he responded.

VIDEO: Clinton, Kasich, and Carson on the 2016 Campaign Trail

If Kasich were to declare himself a challenger to an incumbent Republican president before the 100-day mark, it would be nothing short of treasonous. “Nobody wants to be seen as mentioning any names, because that would be seen as disloyal. Everyone assumes that President Trump runs for re-election, and I can’t imagine another scenario at this point,” G.O.P. pollster Frank Luntz said. “The normal rules of politics don’t apply to him, and we have learned that again and again and again.” Ambitious politicians like Kasich—or Marco Rubio or Tom Cotton—are at pains to sound statesmanlike.

But ambition has a very long half-life. So the challenge for Kasich is to build a critique of the administration and burnish his own brand as a man above D.C. business as usual—he alone can fix it—while cultivating the Trump voters he’ll have to win over should an opportunity arise. Kasich’s rhetoric about the administration’s struggles has been an exercise in political needle-threading. He’s even defended the president—a subtle way of throwing shade, since the implication is that the vaunted businessman can’t even manage his own people. As G.O.P. leaders and Cabinet secretaries scrambled to contain the fallout after Trump signed his first executive order on immigration, Kasich told The Washington Post he thought the president was “ill-served by his staff” but added that he didn’t want to be a “clanging bell” or “negative force against” the Trump administration. Similarly, during his interview with CNN the Sunday following the American Health Care Act failure, Kasich came to the defense of Trump. “The president is not supposed to be crossing all the T’s and dotting all the I’s, that’s an excuse,” Kasich told Bash. “I think his instincts . . . would have been to cut a deal and bring the Democrats in and get this thing done,” he added. Subtext: when you’re already mired in the swamp you spoke of draining, your instincts may not get you very far.