Former Republican presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Jim Gilmore took on former rival John Kasich on Tuesday for not voting for the party nominee Donald Trump. Kasich voted on Monday but wrote in 2008 Republican nominee John McCain’s name on his absentee ballot instead of voting for Trump.
“John Kasich, if you’re watching, you signed a pledge saying you would support the Republican nominee for president,” Santorum told CNN’s Brooke Baldwin. “You signed a pledge to get on the ballot in South Carolina. You promised that you would follow through and you knew Donald Trump had a chance because he was leading in the polls to be our nominee and you signed it anyway.”
“You can’t say a man who’s not going to keep his word is something that, frankly, should be paid attention to when it comes to how he’s going to vote.”
An hour later following Santorum’s interview, Gilmore doubled down on the former Pennsylvania senator’s comments.
“I just don’t think that you run for statewide or national office and call on the loyalties of rank-and-file Republicans all across the country to put up yard signs and go door to door and turn around and tell them you won’t support their candidate. I just think it’s not loyal. It’s not proper and I wouldn’t do it,” said the former Virginia governor.
National Review’s Jim Geraghty joked on the CNN panel that he’s surprised Kasich didn’t write in his own name on his absentee ballot.
“Yeah, well, that would be one vote anyway,” Gilmore snarked about Kasich’s low voter turnout during the primaries.
Baldwin laughed, “Ouch! Not a lot of love for John Kasich on this show today.”
“Unity and loyalty is the only way we are going to beat Hillary Clinton and keep her out of the White House. That’s what I’m trying to do,” Gilmore concluded.
Gilmore is currently the co-chairman of the Virginia Republican Party’s get-out-the-vote efforts.