by Nick Castele
Ohio Gov. John Kasich has been revving up his potential presidential campaign operation before next week's announcement in Columbus.
New Hampshire is home to the nation’s earliest primary, and Kasich has targeted much his campaigning so far at the Granite State. This week, he hosted a town hall meeting in the city of Barrington.
Recently Kasich also hit New England TV screens with one of the early big ad campaigns of the 2016 cycle.
Kasich’s allies have poured at least half a million dollars so far into ads on New Hampshire and Boston TV stations, financial disclosures from the stations show. The Cincinnati Enquirer and Columbus Dispatch report the total ad buy could be around $1.5 million.
Still, Kasich would be joining 15 other announced GOP presidential candidates, and his poll numbers don’t put him in the top 10. That would take him out the first GOP debate in Cleveland this summer.
Dan Birdsong is a political science professor at the University of Dayton. He says announcing in late July could give Kasich a timely boost.
"Doing this middle-of-the-summer announcement can benefit him into the fall," Birdsong said, "and perhaps when the numbers really matter, which is in those first couple of primary and caucus states."
And if Kasich doesn’t make the debates, Birdsong says, he’ll have to find other ways to stay in the headlines.
