Kasich wins home-state Ohio as Trump rolls elsewhere

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- John Kasich finally has a victory under his belt after winning his home state of Ohio.

The Associated Press called the race shortly before 9 p.m. with Kasich leading Donald Trump by 43% to 34% with 6% of the vote counted.

The win — paired with Marco Rubio's exit from the presidential race after a crushing loss in Florida — gives the Ohio governor new life in what remains a steep uphill battle for the nomination.

"Even though I labored in obscurity for so long, people counting me out, people in Ohio saying 'why don’t they ever count on him?' ... I will not take the low road to the highest office in the land," he declared to huge cheers from his home-state loyalists.

Kasich's win will almost certainly give him a big boost in momentum, fundraising and endorsements. But it's mathematically impossible for him to win the nomination outright.

Even as he finally got a victory Trump racked up big victories elsewhere, including a stomping of Rubio in Florida that gave him all of the state's 99 delegates.

The best Kasich can hope for his a contested convention down the road this summer in downtown Cleveland.

He alluded to a push to make it that far in his speech.

"We’re going to go all the way to Cleveland and secure the Republican nomination!" he declared to cheers.

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Ohio's 66 delegates doubled his total delegate count, and he's playing catch-up to both Trump and Ted Cruz. It's hard to see how he can close that gap, though Kasich argued on CNN right after the network called the state for him that he'll be able to do so — or at least force a contested convention by depriving Trump of a majority of delegates.

"I may go to the convention before this all over with more delegates than anyone else," he said. "I’ve had more attention in the last three weeks than I’ve had in the last six months."

And he fired back at claims that he'll have trouble catching up in fundraising.

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