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John Kasich has spent part of the weekend in the private quarters of New York’s Orthodox Jewish community, with my colleague Ben Jacobs in pursuit of the Ohio governor’s quixotic campaign for the Republican nomination.

On Saturday, John Kasich gave what many of the reporters covering his campaign thought was one of his most effective and touching speeches yet. Because it was in a New York synagogue, cameras were banned and even note taking was considered forbidden. As a result only the 500 or so Orthodox Jews who were in the room at the Great Neck Synagogue will ever have seen it.

Kasich. Photograph: Getty

That, in microcosm, is what John Kasich faces as he stumps New York. The Ohio governor is, in effect, running not to lose. With no path to the 1,237 delegates required to win the nomination (he still needs well over 1,000 and there are only 852 still available), Kasich is banking on a deadlock leading to a contested convention and then emerging as a dark horse if neither Donald Trump nor Ted Cruz prevails.

The Ohio governor’s strategy speaks to his precarious situation. Kasich is hopscotching the state from congressional district to congressional district, to places where he can keep Donald Trump under 50% and finish second, thus winning one delegate.

Kasich spent Saturday targeting Jewish voters, many of whom are wary of Trump for reasons ranging from his inconsistency on foreign policy to his sometimes autocratic presentation. The appearance at the synagogue in Great Neck – a heavily Jewish community with a mix of Ashkenazi and Persian Jews – came at a time when many Jews in the United States are feeling particularly uneasy with the rise of Islamic terrorism and growing anti-semitism throughout the world.

There were moments of awkwardness here too, including Kasich briefly citing the end of Psalm 23 to solve a debate among Jewish theologians about the afterlife; and he cited the approaching holiday of Passover as an opportunity to see the Cecil B DeMille classic The Ten Commandments. But mostly the Ohio governor talked about his faith in a touching, personal way. He rooted it in a retelling the story of how his parents were killed by a drunk-driver in a car accident, and discussed the story of Joseph from Genesis.

His sincerity was evident. Kasich cited his past gaffes defensively – “I’m not trying to teach, sometimes when I get carried away they say he’s trying to teach to us and preach to us, I am not.” The only hint of anything political was when he offered what was likely an inadvertent contrast with Trump: “Sometimes we invest too much in the power of leadership and not investing enough in the power of ourselves to bring a healing and justice to this world to live a life bigger than ourselves.”