John Kasich Thanks Women Who ‘Left Their Kitchens’ to Help Get Him Elected to the State Legislature

FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA— Presidential contender John Kasich shocked the hundreds of people who came out to see the Ohio Governor speak here at George Mason University, when he announced that women “left their kitchens” to come out and support him during his first stint in politics in the 1970s.

In remarks at the townhall-style event, Kasich said: “How did I get elected [to the state legislature]? I didn’t have anybody for me. We just got an army of people, and many women, who left their kitchens to out and go door to door and to put up yard signs for me.”

The Ohio Governor said that times were different back in the seventies, and now women are not in the house, but “out working.”

“All the way back, when, you know, things were different. Now you call homes and everybody’s out working. But at that time, early days, it was an army of the women that really helped me get elected to the state senate,” he said.

Following his speech, a woman in the audience who identified herself as a nursing student at the university appeared to be offended by his statement.

“First off, I want to say your comment earlier about the women that came out of the kitchen to support you, I’ll come to support you, but I won’t be coming out of the kitchen,” she said.

Kasich replied, “I gotcha, I gotcha.”

Following the event, Kasich spokesperson Chris Schrimpf tried to put Kasich’s remarks in a favorable context, saying in a statement:

John Kasich’s campaigns have always been homegrown affairs. They’ve been literally run out of his friends’ kitchens and many of his early campaign teams were made up of stay-at-home moms who believed deeply in the changes he wanted to bring to them and their families. That’s real grassroots campaigning and he’s proud of that authentic support. To try and twist his comments into anything else is just desperate politics.

Separately, the Presidential contender gave no indication that he would be stepping out of the race, after finishing in 5th place in Saturday’s South Carolina Republican Primary. 

New polls released Monday from Michigan and Massachusetts indicate that he remains a contender for 2nd place in both states’ Republican primaries. However, Kasich is expected to struggle mightily on Super Tuesday, where voters hit the polls in more conservative-leaning states.