John Kasich: Joint effort with Ted Cruz ‘not a big deal’

Republican presidential hopeful John Kasich said Monday that his joint strategy with rival Ted Cruz to divvy up battleground states in a bid to block front-runner Donald Trump was “not a big deal.”

He also stressed that he wasn’t telling his voters in Indiana not to vote for him, although he has agreed to stop campaigning for the state’s May 3 primary to save resources.

“I’ve never told them not to vote for me. They ought to vote for me,” said the Ohio governor.

He insisted the arrangement with Mr. Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, was not a major development.

“I don’t see this as any big deal other than I’m not going to spend resources in Indiana and he’s not going to spend resources in other places,” Mr. Kasich told reporters at a campaign stop in Philadelphia. “So what? What’s the big deal?”

Mr. Kasich was visiting a diner in Philadelphia ahead of primaries Tuesday in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and Rhode Island that Mr. Trump is expected to sweep.

In a rare move for a primary race, Mr. Kasich has agreed to not campaign in Indiana in exchange for Mr. Cruz not campaigning in Oregon and New Mexico.

Mr. Trump called the scheme “desperate.”

Mr. Kasich, who has only won his home state primary and trails far behind in the delegate hunt, said he agreed to the deal offered by the Cruz camp in order to save campaign cash.

“I think it is fair because in some places we haven’t spent a lot of resources. I didn’t spend resources in the state of Wisconsin — minor amount of spending,” Mr. Kasich said. “I don’t have, like, ’Daddy Warbucks’ behind me giving me all this money. I have to be careful about my resources. Furthermore, the reason I’m in this race is I’m the only one who beats Hillary Clinton.”