After indulging in some of New York’s finest deli meats and pastas during a stop last week in the Bronx, John Kasich was a happy customer.

“This is like being so alive, being in New York,” the Ohio governor said.

Indeed, Kasich’s campaign needs New York to stay alive. Some critics, including Kasich opponents Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, say Kasich has indulged himself enough—staying in the race long past expiration, winning only his home state, and siphoning votes from his rivals. Kasich has forged on without a chance, mathematically, of clinching the nomination outright, insisting instead that his presence in the race keeps the nomination away from Trump in a play for a contested convention.

As the contest now moves east, the spotlight will be on Kasich to prove himself. The campaign has long insisted it is better equipped than Cruz to keep delegates from Trump in states like New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Maryland, where Republican voters may be more in line with his brand than Cruz’s.

The RealClearPolitics polling average finds Kasich with slightly better chances than Cruz in New York, but he falls slightly behind him in Pennsylvania. Trump leads both.

Both Kasich and Cruz are targeting New York, which holds its primary next Tuesday, not as an entire state, but as individual primaries within the state, as it awards most of its delegates via its 27 congressional districts. Kasich and Cruz campaigned in the Bronx, for example, where there are few Republicans but enough to persuade against Trump and result in awarded delegates. They have also been campaigning upstate.

The two candidates not named Trump have now become serious competitors, even as Trump leads New York in the polls by a sizable margin. Notably, Kasich released an ad in New York targeting Cruz—not Trump.

“Ted Cruz can’t win the nomination outright and he can’t defeat Hillary Clinton either,” the ad says. “John Kasich will win the convention.”

Kasich, and Trump for that matter, hope Cruz’s “New York values” statements have come back to haunt the Texas senator, and that voters there will take offense.

Cruz doesn’t have to beat Trump outright in New York to be successful, but he does have to contend with the potential threat from Kasich. Kasich could dominate Cruz in certain districts and deny him delegates—or the plan could backfire, and the competition between them could benefit Trump. If Cruz shuts out Kasich with delegates, it will be even more difficult for Kasich to make his case.

Whether Kasich’s presence in the race is a drain on either Cruz or Trump is unclear.

Kasich supporters believe his exit would help Trump. Cruz supporters believe a two-person race would be more effective in stopping the current front-runner, and that Cruz is the only candidate with a proven record to beat Trump. Cruz and Trump are also fighting to keep the 2012 convention rules in place, which say that any candidate must have won primaries in at least eight states to become the nominee. The rule, if adopted again this year, would prohibit Kasich from winning the nomination at the convention. The rules committee, comprised of delegates to the convention, has not been set, but given the primary outcomes, it will likely favor Trump and Cruz.

Michigan made some allocations to the rules committee over the weekend, and both Trump and Kasich delegates secured seats at the table. The Cruz campaign charged Kasich with teaming up with Trump to box out Cruz. The Kasich campaign argued the Cruz team scrapped a bargain and instead tried to take all of the seats.

Such arcane delegate allocation processes have become something of a separate primary this cycle, when every delegate, and the positioning of each delegate, will count.

Kasich has long maintained that his electability in November will be a selling point to delegates at the convention after the first round of balloting. Indeed, polls show Kasich as the only candidate beating Clinton in a hypothetical matchup, and his home state of Ohio, where he hasn’t lost an election, is critical for Republicans hoping to take the White House. The campaign also believes he can be competitive for the GOP in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania in November.

"What, are we going to pick someone who can't win? I mean, that would be nuts," Kasich told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, arguing that Trump and Cruz would have a negative effect down the ballot. “We would lose seats all the way from the state house to the court house. And I think this is going to be a big consideration at the convention."

One possible reason Kasich does so well in polls against Clinton, critics argue, is that he is largely unknown and undefined. Those numbers could be susceptible to change.

Additionally, it’s becoming more difficult with each primary that goes by for Kasich to make the case that he is electable. If he can’t win primaries and caucuses in the Republican contest, then it’s unlikely he can win a general election, critics argue. What’s more, Kasich hasn’t won a single delegate since winning his home state of Ohio on March 15, the day Marco Rubio dropped out of the race.

"There is no question that we want to win states and are trying hard to do so. And I expect us to do so," says Kasich supporter and New Hampshire-based Republican consultant Tom Rath. But he added: "Winning states does not necessarily equal helping your electability—Trump and Cruz have won states, but they trail the Democrats pretty badly. General election strength is a lot different than winning primaries."

Kasich’s second-place finish in New Hampshire helped propel him in the race. He projected greater success once the contest moved to his home turf in the Midwest. But he tied Cruz for second place in Michigan, where he spent more time than any other candidate and which should have been favorable territory for him. In Wisconsin, he failed to win a single delegate, placing third in every district.

Discussing an open convention scenario on "Face the Nation," Kasich said: "I think you're going to see significant changes in the delegates' voting after the first ballot. The key for me there is going to make sure that I'm able to visit all of these delegations, and, as you know, the process of picking delegates now varies from state to state."

Republican leaders haven’t flocked to Kasich, which raises questions about his chances of being the consensus candidate at the convention. The case becomes harder to make if, for instance, he winds up with fewer delegates than Rubio.

Still, GOP leaders and donors haven’t exactly run to Cruz either, and Kasich supporters believe their candidate provides some cover for Republicans who are reluctant to support the Texas senator.

Kasich has hired veteran party operatives to help him attract delegates at the convention, and he shows no signs of leaving the race. He also seems to be enjoying himself, as was on display at the deli in the Bronx and during town halls across the state.

But positive feelings and hope can only get Kasich so far. Next week’s contest in New York will show whether Kasich is, in fact, on to something, or whether his time already passed him by.