Ohio Gov. John Kasich arrives in Atlanta on Tuesday with a mission to convince voters headed to the polls in one week that he's the best mainstream alternative to take on Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
The Republican will address the Georgia House at 10:30 a.m., meet with Gov. Nathan Deal and then host two town hall meetings in metro Atlanta: A noon event at Kennesaw State University followed by a 5:30 p.m. event at the Sandy Springs City Hall.
The Peach State is tricky terrain for Kasich, a more moderate strain of Republican who is relying on a sunny and above-the-fray message to win over voters. Polls show him languishing near the bottom of the pack here after a fifth-place finish Saturday in South Carolina, and Georgia's "winner-take-most" rules make it difficult for him to snag delegates.
Those rules grant candidates delegates only if they reach 20 percent of the vote or if they finish first or second in one of Georgia's 14 congressional districts. That sets a high bar for Kasich, who clocked in at 8 percent in a WSB-TV poll released on Monday. His top rival for the mainstream mantle, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, came in at 23 percent in that survey.
So why is Kasich visiting? One reason, perhaps, is to try to prove he's still relevant in the national conversation by competing in swath of states that make up the so-called SEC primary.
Another is that his campaign likely hopes it has a chance to pick off delegates with a top-two finish in two Congressional districts: The fifth and sixth. Those more moderate Atlanta districts, represented by Democrat John Lewis and Republican Tom Price, are the only two districts that Mitt Romney wrested from Newt Gingrich in Georgia's 2012 primary.
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