"It’s all becoming like a remnant. Parties go through this, but the party has shrunk," said Ohio Gov. John Kasich. | Win McNamee/Getty Images Kasich: ‘Our party is shrinking’

The midterms are just around the corner and the Republican Party is struggling, Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Sunday on CBS' “Face the Nation.”

“Unfortunately, our party is shrinking,” Kasich said. “We’re now down to about 25 percent. It’s all becoming like a remnant. Parties go through this, but the party has shrunk. And in my state and in my community and in my district, we had a congressional race that the Republican who took my place was able to win by 17 points. And in this election — yes, just a couple of weeks ago — he won by the skin of his teeth.”


The governor was referring to last month’s hard-fought special election in Ohio’s 12th Congressional District. Both Kasich and President Donald Trump endorsed Republican Troy Balderson in the race; Balderson pulled out a slim win over Danny O’Connor to succeed Pat Tiberi, who succeeded Kasich himself.

“I talked to [Balderson] the other day,” Kasich said. “I’m proud of him. He’s saying that the tariffs are a bad idea. He’s also beginning to say, you know, how he said turn off the television, don’t listen to all the talk television and let us get together as Americans. I was proud of him.”

Kasich added that people “spend so much time talking about how lost the Republicans are, but you think about the Democratic Party moving farther and father to the left. … Our country is not center right or center left. It’s not on the extremes.

“Your political party shouldn’t matter so much. Vote for the person.”

In terms of his own political future, Kasich isn’t ready to completely write off the Republican Party. If he were to run in 2020, Kasich maintains that it would be as a Republican and that the party is still worth saving.

“Well, I’m going to do my level best, but at the end, I worry about my country,” said Kasich, who was a candidate in the 2016 GOP primaries. “I worry about my country being a great leader in the world, not more conflict, which can lead to — let’s not even go there. I want my country where the people that live in this country, whoever they are, feel as though they have a hope, they’re respected and they can be successful. That, to me, is what it is really all about.”