WASHINGTON — (CNN) Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Monday the rationale for their decision to coordinate campaign strategy — for now — is an effort to stop Donald Trump from winning the Republican nomination because they fear he would lose to Hillary Clinton in a general election matchup.
But that doesn’t mean they are pulling all their punches.
“What’s the big deal?” Kasich said at a Pennsylvania diner on Monday as reporters peppered him questions about his decision to skip campaigning in Indiana, ceding the territory to Cruz.
“They ought to vote for me,” he said during a gaggle with reporters at a Philadelphia diner.
“I’m not campaigning in Indiana and he’s not campaigning in these other states, that’s all. It’s not a big deal,” Kasich said.
Meanwhile, the Texas senator on Monday praised his opponent for getting out of his way in Indiana, which votes next week, calling it important in the effort to stop the GOP front-runner Trump.
“After discussions with the Kasich campaign, we made a decision to allocate our resources,” he told reporters in Indiana. “I think that made sense for both campaigns.”
Cruz repeated the message from his campaign that it is focusing its resources strategically and investing heavily in Indiana, citing a desire to stop Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton from winning the White House.
Kasich stuck to that talking point as well on Monday, telling reporters the goal was entirely to stop Clinton and he was simply making choices with his resources.
He said Trump would not be able to beat Clinton in November.
News first broke of the arrangement on Sunday, when the campaigns issued statements within minutes of each other that they would divide efforts in upcoming primaries.
With Cruz focusing on Indiana, Kasich is looking to Oregon next month and New Mexico in June.
The goal is to win the maximum amount of delegates possible to keep them from going to Trump — part of a strategy under development for weeks to prevent Trump from getting the 1,237 delegates necessary to claim the GOP nomination before this July’s Republican National Convention.
Kasich said his staff met with Cruz’s team and the recommendations they brought back to him seemed reasonable.
“We’re going to a convention, it’s going to be an open convention,” Kasich said, denying anything unfair about the effort. “All you’ve got to is get the right number of delegates, and you win. If you don’t get the number of delegates, you don’t win.”
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