The Kasich pitch, then, is this: While Trump can deliver the base and Cruz can count on evangelicals, only the governor from Ohio can kick the conservative movement out of its tail-eating and bring new states to the table, re-centering the party with a moderate message that will play as well in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as it will in Mobile, Alabama. And if the Republican nomination race does end in a contested convention, the governor’s respectable favorability numbers and the time he has spent campaigning could make him a more attractive pick than Trump, Cruz, or a “white-knight” candidate like House Speaker Paul Ryan (who really—for real—isn’t interested anyway).

The only problem? The impenetrable and perplexing surface tension of this primary race. To Kasich, the view of the future is as clear as water—a convention that crowns Trump, an embarrassment of a general election, and Hillary Clinton taking the oath of office on Inauguration Day—but he keeps bouncing against this campaign without breaking through. This report, like many other polls, says Kasich could make a difference for the Republican Party. But he may never have the chance to prove it.