Kasich cancels DC-area event, stoking speculation he’ll drop White House bid

DULLES, Va. — Republican presidential hopeful John Kasich canceled a planned Wednesday morning news conference outside Washington D.C., and now plans to address the media in Ohio later Wednesday afternoon.

{mosads}Stewart Young, a campaign volunteer, told a group of reporters that Kasich would not attend the press conference in Dulles, Va., as scheduled and instead will make “an announcement” at 5 p.m.

Kasich had been scheduled to fundraise in the Washington area on Wednesday and meet with his national security staff in Washington on Thursday.

The cancelation of the news conference, the morning after Ted Cruz suspended his White House bid, stokes speculation that the Ohio governor will drop out of the race. 

A “senior campaign adviser” told NBC News that Kasich will suspend his campaign.

Kasich suffered a big blow Tuesday night when Donald Trump’s Indiana primary win forced Cruz to surprisingly drop out of the race. Without Cruz to help Kasich amass delegates and keep Trump from reaching the 1,237 delegate threshold for the Republican nomination, Kasich’s slim opening to become the party’s standard-bearer was slammed shut.

The governor’s team had given every indication that he would press forward, despite having no path to victory, promising in a Tuesday night press release to continue campaigning for “as long as it remains possible.”

The planned Kasich event on Wednesday, held in private airplane terminal near Washington-Dulles International Airport, suffered from logistical snafus long before the Ohio governor scrapped the event. A terminal employee attempted to bar television reporters from holding live shots showing the background of the terminal and said that reporters could not show images of the governor unless the background was obscured.

—This breaking news report was last updated at 11:43 a.m.