Kasich Surrogate Pete Hoekstra: ‘John’s Got to Build Momentum’

John Kasich surrogate Pete Hoekstra, the former Michigan congressman and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said that Kasich’s appeal to independents could help him win at a contested convention in Cleveland. But he still thinks that Kasich needs to do better in the remaining primaries.

“John thinks, number one, we’re going to be headed to a multi-ballot convention,” Hoekstra said in an interview on Breitbart News Saturday on Sirius/XM Patriot Channel 125.

“John’s got to build momentum …This is the conservative candidate that can win in November.”

“Trump and Cruz have really been targeting their message and focusing on trying to win a Republican primary, and they don’t really have a message that extends to independents and extends to Democrats,” Hoekstra said, citing the Real Clear Politics polling average to show that Kasich currently stacks up better against Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.

“Ohio is also the kind of state that if you want to win in November you’ve got to be able to be competitive in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. You’ve got to pick off one or two of those states to get the electoral votes,” Hoekstra said.

“You’ve got to be doing better or else Trump is going to end up with 1,237 delegates on that first ballot. We want to do better in the upcoming states … As we are talking to Trump delegates and to Cruz delegates, they like John Kasich. They see him as their second choice.”

“He’s not getting into fights with Trump. He’s not getting into fights with Cruz. No Twitter wars. So there’s no animosity” with other campaigns or their supporters, Hoekstra said.

“There’s always a lot of surprises. A place like Maryland we can do well, a place like Connecticut we can probably do well.”