Chrissie Thompson and Deirdre Shesgreen

The Cincinnati Enquirer and USA TODAY

NEW YORK — John Kasich was hitting his strongest selling points, but only some of the audience was cheering.

"I am the only candidate who beats Hillary Clinton on a consistent basis," he said over the murmur of conversation and the clink of forks at the New York Republican Party's $1,000-a-plate, black-tie gala. "Do you know what will happen when you nominate people who have high negatives?" he said of polls showing many Americans won't vote for GOP front-runners Donald Trump or Ted Cruz under any circumstance.

"I'm about done here, OK? I just want to tell you this," Kasich said, recognizing he had lost many of the Republican faithful as they dug into their dinner. "I'm going to leave Cleveland as the nominee. Whether you believe it or not, it's going to happen." (Worth noting: The GOP's second-place candidate, Cruz, fared even worse at the gala. When Cruz talked about defeating Trump in Wisconsin, only one person clapped.)

GOP hopefuls take to the podium at N.Y. gala

Minutes earlier, Trump had taken the stage. For nearly 19 minutes, the real estate mogul told a captive audience stories about construction projects he had handled in New York, including at Manhattan's Grand Hyatt Hotel, which hosted the dinner. He spent the final eight minutes of his speech referencing prepared remarks about "New York values," derided by Cruz. Those values, Trump said, are represented by police, firefighters, transit workers and families playing in Central Park.

Trump is going to win the GOP primary Tuesday in his native New York, despite general election polls showing he would trail Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, the former U.S. senator these New York Republicans supposedly despise. While Kasich is poised for a distant second in the state, he trails both Trump and Cruz by hundreds of delegates in the nationwide race. This despite the fact that he's right: He is the only Republican whom polls show could defeat Clinton.

So far, many GOP voters either haven't believed those polls or don't care. But what if the polls are right?

What if Republican voters choose a candidate doomed to fail in November?

Autopsy called for broader GOP, but party's voters felt otherwise

This was supposed to be the Republican Party's year. Many voters are disillusioned with President Obama, a Democrat, saying he promised "hope" and "change" but fell short. The likely Democratic nominee, Clinton, has vulnerabilities, due in part to the intense dislike she engenders among some Republicans and, as Bernie Sanders' momentum has evidenced, disillusionment among some Democrats.

After Mitt Romney’s defeat in the 2012 presidential race, Republican leaders conducted an “autopsy” on the party to figure out what went wrong and how they could win in 2016. The central conclusion: Republicans needed to broaden their appeal to women and minority voters.

“We need to campaign among Hispanic, black, Asian, and gay Americans and demonstrate we care about them, too,” the report stated. "America is changing demographically, and unless Republicans are able to grow our appeal the way GOP governors have done, the changes tilt the playing field even more in the Democratic direction."

Instead, many in the crowded 2016 Republican field spent much of the early primary season telling voters they were more conservative than the next guy – narrowing their pitch to the hard-right and alienating those very constituencies party leaders had identified as crucial for victory. And the candidate who has done the most to offend those groups – Trump – rose like a rocket.

Some in the GOP establishment believe the push toward an exclusionary form of conservatism started with the Tea Party, a movement that came into being seven years ago in response to Obama's policies on health care and other issues. Yet almost none of the voters The Enquirer interviewed at a Trump rally in Pittsburgh Wednesday night had considered themselves Tea Partiers.

"He speaks his mind and tells the truth," and he talks about keeping manufacturing jobs, said Matt Dziak, a 23-year-old steelworker from North Versailles, southeast of Pittsburgh.

Many Tea Party leaders, especially those who oppose Common Core educational standards and have strong evangelical backgrounds, back Cruz.

Steven Pinsky, an independent voter from Plainview, on New York's Long Island, had hoped this would be the presidential election in which he could vote Republican for the first time since Ronald Reagan's tenure. But the only Republican he would vote for is Kasich.

"I believe the Republican Party decided that Obama needed to fail," said Pinsky, a 53-year-old consultant. "If they worked more for America and less against Obama, they'd be a lot stronger. It allowed the extremes to get a foothold in that party."

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Similarly, voters like Fred Price Jr., an African-American retiree from Maryland, feel more alienated than ever in the Republican Party.

“I cannot sell Trump in my community,” Price said. "His attitude and his comments are very negative, and he’s just hollering.”

Price, a member of the Republican Central Committee in Prince George’s County, said he’s concerned a President Trump would shrink the federal workforce, which is a major employer of African-Americans in his county.

“Why would I support a person who is trying to take away what little I have?” he asked. “We need to have specifics of what he’s going to do in our community. Our issues are not the same as in the coal mines. We don’t work in the coal mines.”

Price said he is hoping to become a delegate to the convention as a Kasich supporter. “I’m supporting him all the way until there’s no hope for him,” he said. “I’m with him all the way. I don’t have a second choice.”

Trump's supporters skeptical of general election polling

For all the polls showing Trump would lose to Clinton, his supporters — whether blue-collar workers or New York City donors — say the surveys may prove wrong. (Indeed, trusting general election polls this early is dangerous: Michael Dukakis polled ahead of George H.W. Bush in the spring and summer of 1988, but Bush won the presidency handily that fall.)

Trump hasn't started in on Clinton yet, they say. The Republican National Committee hasn't offered its full guidance to Trump.

Plus, said Justin Hernandez, of Plum, a Pittsburgh suburb: "Nobody asked me" to vote in the poll.

In fact, Hernandez, a 21-year-old plumber, is supporting Trump in part because he believes he has the best chance against Clinton. "We have to win this," he said.

Kasich is trying to claim the "beat Clinton" argument for himself. Now that the race has dwindled from 17 candidates to three, he's getting more attention, he says. The upcoming elections in New York Tuesday and next week in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island — moderate East Coast states where Cruz may struggle — offer him a chance to boost his delegate total heading in to a possible contested convention, where he hopes to emerge as the party's choice.

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Still, Trump is stronger than Kasich in those states. In New York, where Kasich is running second, Trump is currently hovering at just above 50% in statewide GOP polls. New York allocates 81 delegates by congressional district; if Trump crests 50% in any district, he'll deny Kasich or Cruz any of that district's delegates. The Kasich campaign has used social media to plead with anti-Trump political action committees to run ads against Trump in the expensive state, to little avail, leading to the suggestion that the groups are actually backing Cruz.

The Kasich campaign hopes the "beat Clinton" message can also win over supporters of Cruz, who have opposed Kasich's support as governor for Common Core educational standards and for Medicaid expansion under President Obama's health care law.

Richard Morrell, 57, who owns a plumbing business on Long Island, plans to vote Tuesday for Cruz, because he supports his conservative principles.

Still, he wonders whether Cruz could beat Clinton. Polls show Clinton with a slight lead over the first-term Texas senator. He acknowledged Kasich could possibly beat her.

"Then why wouldn't you vote for him in the primary?" asked his brother, Jack, a 53-year-old Long Island electrical contractor. The two had come to see Kasich tape a town-hall-style interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Thursday. "He might not be there in the general," Jack Morrell told his brother.

"That's a chance I have to take," Richard Morrell replied.

What happens to the party?

If Trump loses the nomination at the convention, failing to win the primary outright and then losing when GOP delegates are freed to cast votes for someone else, a few of his supporters say they'll follow him if he starts a third party. A few say they wouldn't vote Republican again. But a number sigh and admit they would give the party another chance in four years.

Similarly, Republicans who oppose Trump or Cruz say they would write off the party, but likely only until the next election.

Maida Barnett, a retired medical technologist of East Norwich on Long Island, considers herself a Republican, but would vote for a Democrat if Trump or Cruz get the GOP nomination. She views Kasich as "the most sane one."

Still, Barnett, 70, thinks widespread opposition from Republicans to either Trump or Cruz could help preserve the party as she has known it.

"When somebody is so removed from the voice of the Republican Party, there is a voice, from the very beginning, saying: 'He does not represent the Republican Party. He only represents himself,' " she said.

Elections 2016 | USA TODAY Network

Alternatively, the party may well unite behind Trump or Cruz if they win the nomination, even if it appears they are destined to lose the general election to the Democratic nominee, said John Feehery, a Washington GOP consultant. Then maybe that loss would spark the kind of soul-searching that he thinks is needed to rebuild and repair the party.

The source of the dysfunction, as Feehery sees it: Candidates have over-promised in recent elections, he said, and then failed to deliver because of legislative realities, creating a deep sense of betrayal among Republican voters.

“Getting rid of the IRS and Obamacare is not a realistic or achievable legislative agenda,” Feehery said, describing campaign vows GOP contenders made in 2010 and 2014. “And I think it’s a two-way thing. I don’t think we’re necessarily listening to the voters, but I don’t think the voters are listening to what’s doable. Those misaligned policy impulses and divisions on key policy things makes it difficult for a candidate to rise who is promoting a responsible agenda.”

Instead, that has produced two front-runners who are more bent on political destruction than legislative victories, he said. “Cruz … has spent most of his campaign trying to destroy the Republican Party,” he said, and Trump “wants to blow up all of Washington. There’s no policy attached."

Of Kasich’s pitch that he’s the only one who can beat Clinton in the fall, Feehery said: “Electability in general election is not a sufficient argument.” Kasich has to actually win some states other than his native Ohio, he said.

On Wednesday, as Kasich squeezed into a tiny ice cream shop just south of Baltimore, an elderly woman tried to maneuver herself into the governor's orbit.

“You’re the one who can save the Republican Party,” the 85-year-old, Alice Vanderwaart, called out when she was close enough.

She was quickly drowned out by other supporters who wanted to bend Kasich’s ear, but he seemed to hear her message. Whether anyone else hears it is another question.