Less than three weeks before Republicans gather in Cleveland to nominate Donald Trump, Team Kasich boasts that Ohio's governor "is the most popular Republican politician in the nation."

Less than three weeks before Republicans gather in Cleveland to nominate Donald Trump, Team Kasich boasts that Ohio's governor "is the most popular Republican politician in the nation."

John Weaver, chief strategist for the defunct John Kasich presidential campaign, sent an email this afternoon highlighting the results of new polling showing Kasich � not Trump � as the strongest potential candidate against the presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

"This data is just further proof that Gov. Kasich is the most popular Republican politician in the nation today, and it underlines why his efforts to help our U.S. Senate and House candidates are so very important," Weaver wrote to Kasich supporters under the Kasich for America email letterhead.

In an interview, Weaver said the poll results demonstrate that Kasich's message resonated around the country and that Kasich "will be tremendously helpful" to Republicans in down-ballot races. Kasich has already made appearances for Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio, Rand Paul of Kentucky and John McCain of Arizona.

"The governor is in high demand to help across the country in what's going to be a very troubled general election, to say the least," Weaver said.

Mark C. Smith, associate professor of political science at Cedarville University, said that while the odds are Trump will get the nomination, "nothing will surprise me over the next couple of weeks."

A campaign sending out an email like Weaver's would "love to unseat the party's nominee at the convention. This is still very turbulent. The former Republican presidents have not endorsed Trump. The former Republican nominees have not endorsed Trump," Smith said. "Many of the party's major donors are sitting back waiting. He has little cash on hand and has shown little desire to run a campaign, hire staff, or raise money. His poll numbers have dropped recently. All of these things must give pause to the GOP, its delegates, and those who want to see the party win in November."

During the 2016 Republican primaries, Kasich won one state � his own � while finishing second in a handful of states, including New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts.

Barry Bennett, a Republican consultant who works for Trump, said Republicans are hardly clamoring for Kasich's assistance. "He's a giver," he said wryly.

Bennett said polls indicate the general election between the New York billionaire Trump and former Secretary of State Clinton is far closer than Ballotpedia's poll shows, and suggested the email was another attempt by GOP consultants to earn a paycheck.

"The light at the end of the tunnel they see is another retainer check," he said.

Throughout the primaries, Kasich tried to build a case, based on polling at the time, that he would be the most formidable candidate against Clinton, but the message failed to sell with GOP primary voters. The governor dropped out of the race on May 4 as the last challenger to Trump.

Kasich has refused to endorse Trump, saying the presumptive GOP nominee must change his policy and personality approaches to earn the blessing of the host governor of the Republican National Convention beginning July 18. But in an interview this month with MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, Kasich called a rebellion against Trump at the convention "very unlikely," and said that should it happen, "I won't be involved in it."

"I'm not out here to disrupt," he said.

Ballotpedia conducted polling in seven battleground states, including Ohio, finding Clinton defeating Trump in all the states by an average of 11 percentage points. It also matched up Clinton against the likes of Kasich and U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan.

"The buried news-lede, though, was the ballot tests: Speaker Paul Ryan and Governor Kasich against Clinton. They confirm what we said throughout the campaign: John Kasich was the very best candidate to defeat Hillary Clinton. On average, Governor Kasich defeated Clinton by 4 points in the 7 key swing states. Speaker Ryan tied her," Weaver wrote in the email.

Ballotpedia's polling showed Kasich beating Clinton in all but Florida and North Carolina. In Ohio, the poll showed Clinton beating Trump 46 percent to 37 percent, but Kasich defeating Clinton 49 percent to 35 percent. The individual state polls had a margin of error of plus or minus roughly 4 percent.

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said he has not seen this much disunity in the GOP since 1964, when Barry Goldwater flamed out.

"I wonder what the fallout will be after November. Will Republicans who strayed be punished?" Sabato asked. "Or will the election results vindicate them, leading to forgiveness by the next election cycle?"

rludlow@dispatch.com

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