As much as he would have liked it to be, Ohio Gov. John Kasich's name will not be on the presidential ballot this year.
The name of Donald Trump, of course, will be on that ballot – a name that John Kasich is loath to even speak out loud, much less endorse.
The governor of the Buckeye State is left to wonder what might have been.
And look at polling that shows he might have done quite well against Hillary Clinton this year.
It is not unreasonable to believe that Kasich, who is 64 years old (six years younger than Trump, four years younger than Clinton), might just be thinking past this election to 2020, the next presidential cycle.
If Trump's candidacy were to fail miserably, taking with it control of the U.S. Senate and leaving behind a Republican Party in complete meltdown, Kasich might see himself as the voice of reason, the grown-up in the room, who could pick up the pieces and put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.
And run for president again, of course.
Sound nutty? No, it's not. Consider:
The consensus of the polls in Ohio – always and obviously a key battleground state in the presidential election – is that Hillary Clinton has a lead over Donald Trump nearly 10 weeks before the election.
That, and about four bucks, will buy you a tall cup of designer coffee, wrapped in an eco-friendly coffee sleeve.
But there they are.
Realclearpolitics.com, a website which (among other things) tracks political polling daily, averaged the last four Ohio polls and gave Clinton an edge of 4.8 percentage points over Trump.
The most recent one, released last Monday, was an independent poll done by Monmouth University's polling institute and it showed Clinton with a slim four percentage point lead over her rival. Not particularly impressive, given the fact that the margin of error in the poll is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
The Monmouth University poll had another little nugget that might make Kasich and his inner circle smile – if Kasich were the GOP nominee, the poll said, he would take 57 percent of Ohio's vote, compared to 33 percent for Clinton.
But, wait, there's more.
At the end of June, the political website Ballotpedia teamed up with the data science firm, Evolving Strategies, on polls of seven battleground states – Ohio, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
The polling showed Trump trailing Clinton in all of them. It showed Kasich leading in all of them except Florida and North Carolina.
But enough about polls. How about "boots on the ground."
Kasich has that too. He's been campaigning around the country for a variety of Republican congressional candidates; and often in states that where he did fairly well in this year's primary contests.
And tonight, Kasich is scheduled to travel back to New Hampshire – the "first in the nation" primary state, to hold a "thank you" reception for major supporters in Concord.
This will be happening in the state where Kasich decided early on in his presidential bid to play all of his marbles; and he did well enough – finishing second to Trump – to continue in the race, all the way up to the end, when he was the last of the GOP contenders to fold his tent and leave the race.
David Niven, an assistant professor of American politics at the University of Cincinnati, said he believes it is blatantly obvious that Kasich is laying the groundwork for a possible presidential campaign in 2020.
"You don't just go to New Hampshire for the fun of it,'' said Niven, who has written speeches for former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination this year. "Nobody who runs in the New Hampshire primary and loses goes back. Unless he wants to run again."
Kasich can't run for governor again in 2018 under the term limits law, although the former central Ohio congressman and House Budget chairman could decide to take on Democrat incumbent Sherrod Brown in 2018. But that seems unlikely.
"If you saw your political future in Ohio, you would scrupulously avoid going out of state a lot,'' Niven said. "Well, Kasich has been out of the state a lot."
And Kasich, since his own bid for the GOP nomination failed, has absolutely refused to endorse Trump and will not lift a finger to help the billionaire developer in Ohio.
Alex Triantafilou, the Hamilton County GOP chairman, supported Kasich in the primaries, but, after Trump won the nomination, jumped on board Trump's bandwagon with both feet.
Triantafilou says he doesn't believe the lack of an endorsement from Kasich is making any difference for Trump.
"I don't think the endorsement or a non-endorsement of one politician is going to make one bit of difference,'' Triantafilou said. "Everybody was on board for Mitt Romney in 2012 and we lost Ohio."
Niven, though, said it is clear to him what Kasich wants.
"He's banking on a Trump loss,'' Niven said. "Not just a loss, but a big loss."
And, if that loss happens and the Republican Party is left in shambles, "somebody has to be there to say what this means and where do we go from here. That could be John Kasich," Niven said.
Mack Mariani, associate professor and chair of the political science department at Xavier University, said he is not certain at all that, if Trump loses, Republican voters would turn to an "establishment" type like Kasich in 2020.
"We got Trump this time because Republican voters were absolutely apoplectic about their party's establishment,'' Mariani said.
Trump, Mariani said, was the outsider. The frank-talking, anti-Beltway, non-politician.
Given Trump's success with GOP primary voters this year, Mariani said, "the next time around, we could see more than one non-politician get into the race for president. A candidate who is a non-politician but who doesn't have the negatives that a Donald Trump has."
Would 2020 be Kasich's year? Well, not if Trump wins. If he loses, maybe so. There's no question that the Ohio governor is still thinking about a future that includes 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
So, if Trump goes down, watch Kasich. He may start making more trips to New Hampshire on a regular basis to thank his supporters.
