There are increasing calls for Chris Christie to resign. Why is he continuing to compete in the 2024 race?
For months, Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, has presented his 2024 presidential campaign as an effort to unseat Donald Trump. Christie is now reinforcing that message and isn’t planning to withdraw anytime soon, despite mounting concerns that his campaign would unintentionally assist the former president.
Christie poses the question, “Who do we want to be as a country?” is a recent commercial that presents voters’ choice in the election as a moral one.
“Donald Trump – he will sell the soul of this country,” Christie declared in a pointed speech delivered directly to the camera. “I’m not flawless. I’m not perfect. However, I’ll always be honest with you.
The 30-second commercial, titled “The Choice,” is the second installment of the campaign’s recent $7k ad purchase in New Hampshire, the state on which Christie has largely bet his chances for victory in 2024.
Despite this, the former prosecutor is currently polling third in the state, and in recent weeks, he has been receiving more and more calls from members of the anti-Trump camp pleading with him to withdraw and back a candidate who has a higher chance of winning.
Chris Sununu, the governor of New Hampshire and vocal opponent of President Trump who supported former governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, in the GOP primary, recently called Christie’s candidature “at an absolute dead end.”
Sununu stated on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, “I know he says he wants to stay in the race to speak the truth about Trump, but that translating He’s reached his limit and it’s very different to get votes in a primary.”
In the Granite State contest, Christie was around 15 points behind Haley and more than 30 points behind Trump, according to an average of surveys compiled by RealClearPolitics. Additionally, a poll done in early December by Saint Anselm College revealed that Christie’s margin of support in New Hampshire was almost identical to the difference between Haley and Trump.
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Regarding the increasingly competitive campaign, Sununu stated, “There’s no doubt that if Christie stays in the race, the risk is that he takes her margin of victory.”
Haley has very little chance of closing the gap on Trump or perhaps defeating the billionaire in New Hampshire. Even if she manages to win the state, she will have a difficult time securing the GOP nominee because Trump has a sizable advantage in other important races.
The possibility that more moderate and even liberal independent voters will be able to cast ballots in the Republican primary in New Hampshire may play a role in her prospects of winning the election. Christie is drawing a lot of these same voters.
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Christie has maintained that there’s no assurance that his followers would vote for Haley in the event that he withdrew. He has also questioned Haley’s strategy—or rather, lack thereof—for criticizing Trump.
“He’s not the ‘Harry Potter’ villain Voldemort.” Christie clarified during a campaign rally in New Hampshire in December that he is not “he who shall not be named.”
In his most recent advertisement, the former governor of New Jersey attacked opponents for not taking aim at Trump.
“There are many who suggest that I drop out of this campaign. Really? In the advertisement, Christie claimed to be the only one who called Donald Trump a liar.
While Christie has come under fire from Trump during the campaign, Haley has avoided bringing up the previous president, opting instead to tread carefully and make vague references to him. Haley frequently asks people to “rightly or wrongly” examine the “chaos” that follows Trump in her stump speech.
Christie, however, has stated he will remain the anti-Trump voice in the campaign until the former ambassador to the UN takes a more pointed shot at the outgoing president.
Christie said of Trump, “He’ll burn America to the ground to help himself.” “In private, every Republican leader makes that claim. I’m the only one who publicly states this.”
