A top Republican and Democrat are mulling the idea of teaming up to take on Trump in 2020

John Hickenlooper and John
Kasich.
Mark Wilson/Getty
Images

Govs. John Kasich of Ohio and John Hickenlooper of Colorado have
frequently appeared side by side this summer to focus on
influencing the national healthcare debate.

Now there are rumors that Kasich, a Republican, and Hickenlooper,
a Democrat, could embark on a joint independent presidential bid
in 2020, the news website Axios reported
Friday.

The cross-party ticket would feature Kasich at the top with
Hickenlooper as his running mate, according to the report.

Axios reports that the two plan to extend the platform they’ve
built on healthcare to immigration and job creation. They’re also
discussing with major media outlets the possibility of a podcast
or cable news show, the report said.

John Weaver, a top adviser to Kasich who served as the chief
strategist for the Ohio governor’s 2016 Republican presidential
campaign, told Business Insider to expect to see a lot more of
the pair in the coming months.

“They work very well together and will continue to lead on
healthcare, immigration, and probably other key issues,” Weaver
told Business Insider in an email, adding a smiley emoticon.

Kasich and Hickenlooper made their first major appearance
together at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, in
late June to criticize the Republican healthcare legislation that
the Senate was debating. They called on both parties to come
together and form a better plan while seeking more stakeholder
input, such as that of US governors.

The pair also signed onto multiple letters
and statements
rejecting different iterations of the legislation, leading a team
of bipartisan governors who were critical of the Republican
healthcare plan and process before it fell apart late last month.

Earlier this month, Kasich and Hickenlooper appeared
together on CBS’s “Face the Nation” to advocate bipartisan
fixes to the Affordable Care Act, the law better known as
Obamacare. In another joint interview, the pair said they were
close to presenting their plan to help stabilize the nation’s
health-insurance markets.

“We’re getting very close,” Kasich said. “I
just talked to my guys today, men and women who are working on
this with [Hickenlooper's] people, and we think we’ll have some
specifics here, I actually think we could have it within a week.”

Hickenlooper has tempered talk of a possible presidential ticket
with Kasich, though when asked during a Politico Playbook
Exchange event earlier this
month, he said, “You never know.”

Days later, he said it was “not in the cards.”

“We’re a two-party system, and that kind of a campaign generally
distracts,” he told a local Denver
reporter. “I mean, it’s symbolic, and I can understand the
point of that, but I don’t think it’s in the cards. It’s fun to
talk about, but it’s not in the cards.”

Standing alongside Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom
Perez, he joked that the DNC leader would “kill me if I did
something like that,” which elicited laughs from both men.

Kasich, who has at times not been shy about opposing President
Donald Trump, has hinted to reporters
that he may again try to seek the presidency in 2020 either as
part of an independent bid or as a Republican primary challenge
to Trump.

Neither a representative for Hickenlooper nor one for Trump’s
2020 reelection effort immediately returned a request for comment
from Business Insider.

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