John Kasich counting on undecided voters
MANCHESTER, N.H. – Over and over, voters laughed when an Enquirer reporter asked them about their "short lists" of candidates.
Truth is, the lists aren't very short.
"Oh my God, I've settled on 10," laughed Alex Work, a 19-year-old University of New Hampshire student.
Voters in the Granite State, home to the nation's first primary, are famously undecided until the final days before the election. Recent polls have shown mixed results for Ohio Gov. John Kasich – he fell to seventh in one recent New Hampshire poll, but sat at third in another released Friday. Billionaire Donald Trump continues to lead, although his margins are shrinking.
But New Hampshire veterans say those numbers don’t reflect a decided electorate. Luckily for Kasich, most undecided voters surveyed Monday by The Enquirer said he was on their lists, no matter how long – thanks in large part to the more than $5 million in pro-Kasich television ads that have blanketed the Granite State.
Roberta Paine of Keene said Kasich seemed "reasonable" in the ads. "The idea that people can't work together is absurd," she said. Still, an acquaintance had heard of Kasich's fiery side, telling her Kasich could be "intense."
Paine was rushing to feed a parking meter Monday afternoon so she could see for herself. Kasich wrapped up a day of speeches by eight Republican and Democratic presidential candidates hosted by No Labels, a group that promotes cooperation and pragmatic approaches to government.
Amid an increasingly combative election season, candidates preached bipartisanship, hoping to woo New Hampshire's unique "undeclared" voters.
Close to half of the state's 874,000 voters don't register with a party, which allows them to vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary Feb. 9. Still, nearly all the undeclared voters cast ballots in the same party's primary year after year, said University of New Hampshire pollster Andrew Smith.
Nevertheless, half of all voters in the last two elections hadn't made up their minds by the Sunday before the primary, according to Smith.
"Sometimes I decide when I'm casting the vote," said Lisa Alexander of Pelham, who brought her teenage daughter to the forum.
Even Trump, whose candidacy hasn't exactly been defined by its conciliatory approach to rivals, tried to get on the undecided voters' lists, seeking to show he was willing to cooperate.
"When I was a businessman, I got along with everybody," he told reporters before the event. And then, when speaking to voters: "I like the word 'compromise.' We need compromise. … But it's always good to compromise and win."
But unlike Trump's rallies, the audience wasn't full of convinced Trump fans. So The Donald received a tough reception from more than a thousand voters who attended the convention, perhaps best illustrated an hour after his appearance. That's when one woman's plea to reporters – "Please don't make today about Donald Trump" – received one of the biggest ovations of the day.
Trump had his share of rocky moments, such as when he interrupted an Asian-American man who was asking about South Korea's defense alliance with the U.S. "Are you from South Korea?" Trump asked. No, the young man said, responding that he was from Texas. Many in the crowd hollered at Trump's assumption.
Policy details seemed to be much of what the undecided group of voters wanted. When Trump started talking about lowering the federal debt and trimming deficits, a chorus of audience members shouted, "But how?"
"We have tremendous cutting to do," Trump said. Then, to applause, "You have a Department of Education that is totally out of control. … We're going to save on the department of environmental protection (referring to the Environmental Protection Agency), because they're not doing it.
"And many, many other things. Hundreds of billions of dollars is going to be saved, just in terms of running government."
Memo: John Kasich's PAC to position him as shakeup agent amid polling slide
But Kasich, who helped balance the federal budget when he was in Congress in the 1990s, cautioned against that sort of approach.
"Everything doesn't have to be slash and burn," said Kasich, who plans to outline a balanced-budget proposal Thursday. "You're not in this business to win a popularity contest. You're in this business to be an adult," he said to applause.
After his speech, Kasich got a chance to win over an undecided from Georgia – and may have succeeded.
"You might be the first Republican I vote for and might campaign for," Sharon Ennis told him, "but for this: I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal."
"Where are you really going to focus?" asked Ennis, of Atlanta.
Kasich is socially conservative – supporting abortion restrictions, for instance, and efforts to defund Planned Parenthood's non-abortion operations.
"Planned Parenthood, I don't care where your position is on that. We need to have family planning. It just shouldn't be done by those," Kasich said of Planned Parenthood. But, he said, he believes the best way to help families is to focus on growing the economy, so parents can have jobs to support their families.
Ennis later told The Enquirer she wanted to avoid "small-minded" conservatives.
"I don't think that's his position," she said. On Planned Parenthood, she said, he might be right.
"I, in fact, might vote for him," Ennis said. "I'm trying to get a feel for, how big is their world?"
Breaking down John Kasich’s polling – & 4 other things that will measure his 2016 success