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Kasich in Strongsville
Gov. Kasich spoke at a town hall meeting in Strongsville, Ohio, touting his record in Ohio. He said he would not take the “low road to the highest office in the land,” referring to the mud slinging going in the Republican debates.
“We’re going to be positive about the rest of this century,” Kasich told the crowd.
The first person to speak at the town hall told Kasich he had travelled from Brooklyn, New York to knock on doors in Michigan and Ohio.
“You’re the only candidate this country needs,” the Brooklyn man said.
Gov. Kasich said if elected he would stop the introduction of federal regulations in his first 100 days unless they deal with health and safety.
On the recent violence at Trump rallies, Gov. Kasich said it has to stop.
“The world is watching this. Our enemies are going to take advantage of this,” Kasich said.
Trump in West Chester
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump held a town hall in West Chester Twp. Sunday, one day after holding rallies in Dayton and Cleveland, and a day after Ohio Gov. Kasich in Sharonville criticized Trump for creating a "toxic environment" in politics.
• More than 1,000 are attended the town hall.
• Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones introduced Trump at the event saying, “Greatest day for our county. People who are supporting Mr. Trump are great Americans. Look at all of us.”
Trump called Ohio’s real estate tax “a disaster.”
Shortly after the rally started, a couple of Bernie Sanders supporters briefly disrupted the Trump event.
A boy who identified himself as a seventh grader stood up and asked Trump what he would do for his education.
Trump said the country will be safe.
“The number one thing we have to do is security and safety,” Trump said.
The crowd cheered when Trump added he would get rid of common core requirements and replace it with locally based education.
A Native American asked Trump if he could get the Native Americans an apology for the events that happened in the past.
“I haven’t been big on apologizing,” he said. “You do know that?”
Trump said he would look into the issue.
Keith Maupin, the father of Staff Sgt. Matt Maupin, who was killed 12 years ago after he was captured while serving in Iraq, was in attendance at Donald Trump's town hall.
Trump came under fire last summer for comments he made about Arizona Sen. John McCain and questioning whether he was a war hero.
At the time, Trump had been asked about McCain and responded, “he’s not a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured, okay?”
McCain, the GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee, spent more than five years in a POW camp during the Vietnam War.
Keith Maupin started the non-profit Yellow Ribbon Support Center to support men and women in the Armed Services and to also to remember POWs.
Sanders at Ohio State
The crowd chanted "O-H-I-O" and 'Bernie, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie," before Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders took the stage during a rally Sunday at the Schottenstein Center at the Ohio State University in Columbus.
Jamie Fant of Trotwood said he was undecided, but liked some of Sanders’ position on the high cost of going to college.
“There is something wrong when they are paying more in interest payments for a child to go to college than what a house mortgage is,” Fant, a retired worker in the state prison system, said from the event.
Concerning Hillary Clinton, Fant said, “She’s still more of the establishment than she is looking out for the people.” Eight years ago, Fant said he backed Barack Obama over Clinton.
“I love you too and I thank you all for being here,” Sanders said in response to calls from the crowd.
Sanders went on to criticize Trump for offering to pay legal bills to those who cause violence at his rallies and Clinton for accepting $250 million from political action committees funded from Wall Street and drug companies.
After defeating Clinton, Sanders said he would beat Trump.
Bringing the American people together trumps dividing us up,” he said. “Love trumps hatred.”
If elected, Sanders said he would expand Social Security, almost double the minimum wage to $15 dollar an hour, provide health care to more Americans and up to three months in medical leave for new mothers and ill workers.
Instead of on war and improvements in countries including Afghanistan, Sanders said he would “rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.”
He said he would end cut down high student debt and bring “tuition-free colleges and universities” to the U.S. paid for through “a tax on Wall Street speculation.”
Sanders said he needed a big turnout to win on Tuesday and urged supporters to work together to help him win in November.
“If we stand together, there is nothing we cannot accomplish,” Sanders said.
Sanders and Clinton at Democratic dinner
Candidates U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Hillary Clinton headlined an Ohio Democratic Party dinner in Columbus, less than two days before Ohio voters weigh in on the Democratic nominee for president.
During a break, Clinton and Sanders supporters began chanting at each other from opposite balconies.
Sanders made many of the same points at the party dinner, but called for “millions of people to jump into the political process.”
He urged Ohio Democrats to stand together and join him “to take on the billionaire class.”
Clinton promised to execute her plan to create millions of jobs in manufacturing and repairing roads and other deteriorating infrastructure. She proposed taking back tax breaks and exit taxes on countries sending jobs overseas.
“We need a president who knows how to compete against the rest of the world and win,” she said.
Clinton also promised to fight to bring jobs back to Ohio and the U.S., but said foreign trade “done right can help thousands of Ohio companies.”
Clinton criticized Kasich for signing a law defunding Planned Parenthood and charged Republican candidates with hurling “insults that take us nowhere.”
Several times, she complimented Sanders for offering new plans.
“We’re both presenting ideas,” she said.
Clinton attacked Trump’s campaign and urged voters to come out and help defeat him.
“If you want to shut him down, then let’s vote him down. Then let’s raise up a better future for ourselves and our children,” she said.
Cruz in Columbus
At a Columbus event at the Northland Performing Arts Center, GOP hopeful Ted Cruz said Trump is a flawed candidate and he is the only one that has the path forward to win nomination
Cruz, a U.S. Senator from Texas, said John Kasich and Marco Rubio are good men but says they have no path to the GOP nomination. He urged those who have supported his opponents to join him.
“People are waking up all over this country. There is spirit of awakening,” said Cruz who was in Lakeland, Florida earlier in the day.
In Columbus, Cruz described Washington politics as,”Tics, blood-sucking parasites.”
If elected, Cruz said , “We will repeal every word of Obamacare” and pass “affordable health care reform” and a flat tax “where every American can fill out our taxes on a post card.”
Cruz promised to secure U.S. borders and end sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants, resulting in higher wages and better jobs for Americans.
“We’ll see morning in America again.”
The death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia raised the stakes in the election, Cruz said.
“Not one, but two branches of government lie in the balance,” he said, adding the country was “one liberal justice away” from decisions contrary to conservative values on a range of issues.
Cruz said, unlike Trump, he would not compromise religious liberties. He said that unlike Obama, he would “stand unapologetically with Israel” against Palestinians.
He charged the media with deciding Ohio would go to Trump or Kasich but cited a new NBC poll putting him within a half dozen points of them and ahead of Clinton in Ohio in November.
Cruz urged supporters to each bring out nine others to vote for him.
“That’s how we’ll win,” he said. And we will turn this country around.”