President Donald Trump went after a nemesis of sorts in Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Monday, calling Kasich “very unpopular” and a “failed presidential candidate.” Trump criticized Kasich for “tamping down” enthusiasm for state senator Troy Balderson‘s U.S. House run. Kellyanne Conway‘s husband George had something to say about that.
As Mediaite noted, Kasich pointed out that Balderson’s margin of victory was underwhelming. The New York Times has the count at 101,772 (50.1 percent) to Balderson and 100,208 (49.3) to Democrat Danny O’Connor.
“It wasn’t a good night because this is a district that you should be winning by, you know, overwhelming numbers,” Kasich said.
Trump appears not to have taken this remark kindly, attacking Kasich’s popularity. That’s when George Conway showed up with a Suffolk University poll of Ohio midterm voters. Conway particularly pointed to the section about unfavorability ratings.
Trump by far generated the most negative response among participants in the poll at 58.6 percent. Next up was Kasich at 34.8 percent. Compare that 39.4 percent favorability for Trump and 42.4 percent for Kasich. 386 of the people 500 surveyed identified as white/caucasian. That’s 77 percent. Most respondents were between the ages of 35 and 74.
Also of note, participants were asked who they would vote for if Democrat Sherrod Brown or Republican Jim Renacci were the choices. 53.4 percent leaned Democrat and 36.6 percent leaned Republican.
This is far from Conway’s first rodeo when it comes to needling the Trump Administration, even though it is his wife’s employer.
Conway has criticized the Trump Administration on the national debt, pushed back against the idea that Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s appointment is “unconstitutional” and retweeted a tweet by CNN anchor Jake Tapper criticizing Trump for saying the findings of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on FBI conduct related to the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Trump said that the report exonerated him of collusion, when the report actually didn’t address him at all.
Then there was his response to the Trump-Putin summit.
Conway was in the news recently for a different reason. Former Trump staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman has a book coming out. As part of that, she alleged Trump called Conway racial slurs like “f*cking flip” and “goo-goo,” denigrating his Filipino heritage. Conway said that this was “not credible, and indeed is ridiculous.”
[Image via Chip Somodevilla and Getty Images]