John Kasich launched a Hail Mary bid for the presidency on Tuesday, making him the last entrant in the Republican Party’s most crowded field in decades.

The two-term governor announced his bid during a Tuesday appearance at The Ohio State University, his alma mater, where he highlighted his long career in public office and his success in turning around his state’s troubled economy. Yet as Kasich embarks on his quest for the party’s nomination, he confronts a big challenge: He’s starting late.


“Part of this is that he has to go out there and get known,” said Keith Faber, president of the Ohio state Senate and a Kasich ally, who pointed out that the Ohio Republican lacks the national profile that many of his GOP rivals, from former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, can lay claim to after spending months on the road.

To hear Kasich’s aides tell it, there’s still room for him in the soon-to-be 16-candidate field — and that’s in no small part, they say, because Bush, for all his financial might and deep ties to the Republican Party establishment, has yet to achieve a commanding lead in polls.

“He hasn’t caught fire, and that’s why there’s so many people running,” said John Weaver, Kasich’s chief strategist and a veteran of presidential politics, who argued that for the first time in more than half a century the party lacked a presumptive nominee. “There’s not a front-runner in this race.”

As he sketches out a path to the nomination, Kasich — who waged a short-lived bid for the presidency in 2000 — is preparing to make his most aggressive stand in New Hampshire, the famously independent-minded state where, his advisers believe, his plain-spoken approach and pugnacious style will garner the most appeal.

To underscore the importance he’s placing on the state, the governor will depart for New Hampshire immediately following his announcement and hold a town hall event there Tuesday evening. He will remain in the state through Thursday, holding a total of five campaign appearances. Accompanying Kasich will be former New Hampshire Sen. John Sununu, a supporter and chief surrogate.

“I imagine he’ll spend a great amount of time here,” said Sununu. “He’s been here as much as any one of the candidates over the last two months.”

The governor has stocked his campaign with veterans of New Hampshire politics, including Weaver, an architect of John McCain’s 2000 primary win in the state. (Weaver and Fred Davis, Kasich’s media consultant, also worked for former Ambassador Jon Huntsman, who turned New Hampshire into an outpost in his 2012 bid for the nomination but fell short.) Kasich has also established a political action committee, New Day for America, which has purchased $3 million in TV advertising in the state.

Those close to Kasich are fond of comparing him to McCain, who similarly branded himself as an unvarnished, tell-it-like-it-is figure.

“This one has a similar feel to McCain’s race in 2000, in that the support Kasich is getting is organic and that he speaks in an everyman way, like John did,” said Weaver, adding that the governor’s speech will “be emotional, and from his heart.”

The path, however, is far from clear in New Hampshire. The governor will join a swelling group of candidates — including Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina and Rand Paul — who have announced their candidacies and are spending substantial amounts of time in the state. Other early primary states may also pose challenges. It’s not clear, for example, whether he’ll be able to contest evangelical-rich states like Iowa and South Carolina, where social issues are paramount. Kasich opposes same-sex marriage, but has taken on a less strident position than some of his opponents. (He recently said Ohio would “abide” by the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on gay nuptials.)

Nationally, his decision to embrace a key component of Obamacare — the expansion of Medicaid to low-income adults — could hurt him with conservative voters, who despise the president’s health-care law, and puts him at odds with his primary opponents.

Kasich, though, has a more immediate concern: qualifying for the first Republican primary debate, slated for Aug. 6 in Cleveland. With only the top 10 contenders in national polling making the cut, Kasich, as it currently stands, would be left out — a potentially embarrassing blow given that it will be held in his home state.

The governor must deal with another perplexing problem: He is running for president without the backing of two of the state’s most powerful elected Republicans, Sen. Rob Portman and House Speaker John Boehner. Both have pledged to remain neutral, though it is widely believed that their sympathies lie with Bush. Portman for a time served in George W. Bush’s Cabinet and his fundraiser, Heather Larrison, is serving as the former Florida governor’s finance chief. Boehner — who supported Kasich in his 2000 bid — has been publicly complimentary of the former Florida governor, saying last year that he was “nudging” Bush to run for president.

Last month, Kasich and Boehner held a private meeting, according to two sources. Aides to Kasich say he didn’t ask for an endorsement, though they declined to elaborate on what was discussed.

For all the questions about Kasich’s standing in the contest, those close to him say there’s a simple reason he didn’t enter the fray sooner: He simply wasn’t ready. It wasn’t until this spring, they said that he became convinced that a lane for him still existed. At around that time, his top aides began distributing a brochure to potential donors to gauge interest, and to offer a preview for how he’d wage a campaign.

Without mentioning any of his prospective Republican opponents by name, the pamphlet argued that Kasich — who spent nearly two decades in the House of Representatives prior to being elected governor in 2010 — had unmatched political credentials. And it highlighted a central Kasich selling point: that he’s a proven winner in a critical state. “Ohio is a swing state. In fact, it is the swing state,” it said. “No Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio. Ever.”

While he enters the contest as a decided underdog, some Republicans say Kasich — a political scrapper whose career in public service began in the late 1970s, as he worked his way from the state Legislature to Congress to the governorship — can’t be counted out.

“Yes, he is starting very, very late,” said Frank Luntz, a longtime Republican pollster. “But he is the hardest worker I’ve seen. And if he campaigns as hard as he works, he’ll have a shot.”