[ad_1]
Chris Christie is embarking on a mission that will force even some of his most powerful allies to squint at the end in the White House.
But the former New Jersey governor, now 60 and more than five years out of office, is undaunted by a project almost as important as winning the presidency: rescuing the Republican Party. He was freed from the control of Donald J. Trump.
“You have to think about who has the skills to do it and who has the courage to do it because whatever happens doesn’t end well.” Christie said in March: At the same University of New Hampshire, he plans to announce a likely bid on Tuesday.
“His end will not be a calm and quiet conclusion,” he said of the former president.
Christie, who has seen Trump transform the party as he heads into the campaign, is not afraid to speak up for Republicans fed up with the ideological direction and the complexities of the campaign over the years. position itself as the only candidate to loss.
It’s a complete reversal for Christie, who gave the then-famous Trump campaign crucial legitimacy by endorsing him after the 2016 presidential election failed. After Mr. Christie helped Trump rise, he began to paint a picture of Mr. Trump’s downfall.
The question is whether there is a market for Mr. Trump’s offerings within the Republican Party, where he remains overwhelmingly popular.
Former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer said, “Just saying, ‘I’m a Kamikaze candidate,’ I don’t know if it’s going to work.” “Will people who hate Trump because of his mean tweets love a man who is mean about Donald Trump?”
Mr. Christie’s flaws as an anti-Trump messenger are clear. Christie stood by the president for nearly the entirety of Trump’s four-year tenure in the White House — even when he contracted the deadly coronavirus while preparing for the fall 2020 debates. He only broke up with Trump over his electoral lies and violence on January 6, 2021.
So expect your next campaign to be something of a redemption tour. Drawn to the presidency for more than a decade and his decision not to run at the height of his popularity in 2012 was the subject of widespread speculation, he is unburdened by expectations and is running again. .
Yes he is trying to win. He has said he will not run unless he sees a path to victory. (“I’m not a paid assassin,” he told Politico.) But he also wants to separate his party from Mr. Trump.
“He wouldn’t like it, but he’s a loser. It’s a no-brainer,” Mr. Christie said of Trump in an interview last year shortly after the Republican party’s disappointing midterm elections.
It is this kind of quote and anti-Trump message that has turned many Brexit Republicans into CNN commentators, MSNBC stars, and former elected officials.
At the heart of Mr. Christie’s pitch to disgruntled Republicans is his argumentative skills. The most memorable achievement of his candidacy in 2016 was defeating Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
“I’d rather have someone on stage who can do to him what I did to Marco,” he said at an event in March, wheezing the crowd with his poignant confrontation with Rubio. “Because that’s the only thing that will beat Donald Trump.”
But Mr. Christie’s first challenge will not be facing Mr. Trump. You will be eligible to participate in the debate stage. The Republican National Committee’s standard of 40,000 donors in 20 states can be particularly difficult for candidates without small-donor supporters, whose anti-Trump message is stronger than that of conservatives. likely to attract Democratic donors.
So far, Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and self-funded businessman Vivek Ramaswamy have announced they hit the mark. (There is also a 1% voting requirement.)
Spicer, who later hosted a show on the right-wing cable network Newsmax, said Mr Christie “didn’t appear in conservative media” to retain right-wing supporters. “He’s on ABC a lot,” Spicer said of the mainstream news networks where Christie is a paid commentator.
A quick quote and media savvy — Mr. Christie had turned his acerbic attitude toward reporters into a selling point for Republican supporters a decade before Mr. DeSantis — he said the media outlets had a relationship with him. It may be that he wants a showy fight from the front. .Trump.
After Trump’s recent city council speech on CNN, he did not say whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war with Russia, but Christie slammed him as a “Putin puppet.” .
But even the relatively small faction of Republicans opposed to Mr. Trump’s return to power may be wary of Mr. Christie. Not only did he provide significant early endorsement in 2016, but he also led the transition to president, serving as an informal advisor and debate coach throughout the 2020 election, while taking over several top posts.
“Have you found Jesus now?” asked Rick Wilson, an outspoken Republican critic of Trump before leaving the party altogether. “And now you’re going to fight Trump?”
“The credibility that Christie is Trump’s opponent is near zero,” Wilson said.
Early polls show Mr. Christie faces an even steeper slope than other candidates, who are likely voting in the low single digits. For example, a CNN poll in late May put him in fifth place with 2% of the vote, tied with South Carolina Senator Tim Scott.
But of all the Republican candidates who took part in the poll, Christie was the most likely person, at 60%, to say they would not support him under any circumstances. That figure was 15% for DeSantis and 16% for Trump.
Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, who has voiced his dissatisfaction with the 2024 election, said, “Objectively, I was anti-Trump, then pro-Trump, now anti-Trump again. “It’s hard to see a clear crossroads with Chris Christie, who’s been in it.” However, some partners in his company are working with Mr. DeSantis. “There’s not a lot of room for that in Republican constituencies at this point.”
Still, with former Vice President Mike Pence and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum also expected to be in the race this week, with the Republican nominee increasingly crowded, Christie’s campaign is so clear with him. He sees an opportunity to be the only candidate interested in discussing it. .Trump.
Other candidates with lower approval ratings avoid actively criticizing the former president in order to retain his supporters. Some, like former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, prefer to attack Mr. DeSantis and try to challenge him first to emerge as a leading candidate to replace Mr. Trump. But Mr. Christie’s advisers see Mr. Trump leading the way to the nomination.
His supporters organized a super PAC, “Tell It Like It Is,” led by a number of veteran Republican operatives. And Mr. Christie’s decision to start with New Hampshire is a sign of the state’s central role in his political calculations, as he hosted more than 100 city halls during the 2016 election campaign. Many of its bases were also based in the state. On Tuesday, he is expected to flesh out his vision for the nation in more detail.
But there are widespread questions about how far Mr. Christie’s vision extends beyond overthrowing Mr. Trump. The Wall Street Journal editorial board, in his editorial on the eve of kickoff, feared the candidate would have an unintended impact on the race.
“If Mr. Christie is not a guided missile aimed at Mr. Trump, is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, for example, an unguided missile that can blow up?” the editorial board wrote.
Influential Fox News host Sean Hannity recently questioned whether he was going to give Christie airtime. “You’re in this election just because you hate Donald Trump and want to punch Donald Trump,” Hannity said on air. “I don’t think Chris Christie would actually want to run for the nomination. He sees his role as an enforcer and attacking Trump.”
Trump posted the clip on his social media site, Truth Social.
Maggie Haberman contributed to the report.
[ad_2]
Source link
