Can Donald Trump, who beat Kasich by a wide margin in the New Hampshire primary last week, seriously challenge Kasich, overcome the governor's home state advantage and dash his hopes of becoming president?

If Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s presidential campaign can make it to his home-state primary in about four weeks, he could challenge Republican front-runner Donald Trump. At least according to an unscientific survey for more than 500 readers of The Repository, but Kasich is going to need help.

With expectations low for Kasich in the southern states’ primary, many pundits believe he has to win Ohio’s winner-take-all presidential primary on March 15th. There are 66 delegates are at stake.

But can Trump, who beat second-place Kasich by a wide margin in the New Hampshire primary last week, seriously challenge Kasich, overcome the governor’s home-state advantage and dash his hopes of becoming president?

The survey of 536 Repository readers, taken between Friday and Tuesday indicates it is possible. The survey was not of a representative sampling of Stark County voters and may not accurately reflect the sentiment of the local electorate.

Of the 536 respondents, 339 indicated a preference for a Republican primary candidate. That exceeds the 210 who identified themselves as Republicans, the 163 who said they’re Democrats and the 132 who identified with being independents with 31 saying they’re none of these. Historically, the number of registered Democratic voters has exceeded the number of registered Republican voters.

Ohio allows any voter to vote in a party’s primary, but they can’t vote in any other party’s primary for that election.

Of those 339 who indicated a preference for their top Republican candidate they would support, 120 (35 percent) said they would back Trump and 105 (31 percent) said they would support Kasich.

Ted Cruz was next at 39, Marco Rubio right behind him at 35. Next was “none” at 19, Ben Carson at 14 and Jeb Bush at 7.

However, many indicated their second choice was Kasich. If Rubio, Carson and Bush were removed from the choices, the unscientific survey says 151 of 328 respondents (46 percent) would choose Kasich, 126 (38 percent) would back Trump and 51 (16 percent) would support Cruz.

This brings up the possibility that should Rubio, Bush and Carson drop out of the race between now and March 15th, their supporters would vote for Kasich.

However, if Kasich leaves the race before the Ohio primary due to disappointing primary and caucus performances and drying up of campaign contributions, then Trump wins a majority of the respondents’ support.

On the Democratic primary side, Hillary Clinton appears to be getting separation among the respondents. Of the 211 who said they would vote for a Democrat, Clinton received 48 percent (101) of the support with Sanders at 38 percent. Thirty of those taking the survey said neither.

Respondents, who could choose three issues they considered the most important in the race, indicated that economic issues were the most important to them. The issue “improve the economy,” got 296 votes and “job creation” got 160 votes. But the issue of terrorism and security got 243 votes with 136 saying the Islamic State was a top issue.

Reach Robert at 330-580-8327 or

robert.wang@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @rwangREP