Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie estimated dead even odds of Donald Trump running for president again during an interview on Sunday.
The ex-governor and former adviser to Mr Trump’s 2016 campaign never made it into the chaotic Trump White House or broader administration, but remained largely supportive of the president and his policies until January 6. He has remained a vocal critic of Mr Trump since, blaming him for inspiring the deadly riot that engulfed Congress.
On Sunday, he joined ABC’s This Week and posited that it was as likely that Donald Trump would sit out the 2024 election cycle as it was that he would run again.
“Am I convinced Donald Trump’s going to run for president? I am not convinced. I believe it’s a 50-50 shot right now whether he runs or he doesn’t,” Mr Christie said.
The remarks come alongside the former president dropping hints about planning another bid in most, if not all, of his campaign-style rally appearances; Mr Trump also echoed those inclinations during a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas over the weekend.
Mr Christie went on to say that the former president was making a very different calculus than he did before launching his successful 2016 bid for president. Mr Trump was largely treated as an unserious candidate by large swaths of the mainstream and conservative media spheres during the 2016 campaign before seizing the GOP nomination and eventually trouncing Hillary Clinton in the general election.
According to Mr Christie, the 45th president knows that any bid he launches for the White House in 2024 will be met with outright hostility from the mainstream press as well as parts of his own Republican Party should his hand-picked candidates, particularly for the US Senate, lose their races to Democrats in November.
“He’s going to factor that in to whatever he decides to do, ‘cause, he’s not dumb,” Mr Christie argued.
Mr Trump headlined CPAC over the weekend and has recently been pictured with far-right firebrands like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson as he continues his bid to remain the de facto leader of the GOP. While suffering some setbacks in the 2022 primary season, particularly in the Georgia gubernatorial primary, the ex-president’s chosen loyalists won many primaries including for key Senate races in Georgia, Pensylvania and Ohio in a show of his dominance over other GOP figures like Mike Pence or Ted Cruz, who backed rivals to his handpicked candidates.
Those candidates have become somewhat of a sour point for the national Republican Party, however, as Democrats are now leading their opponents in those three Senate races named above. it appears that Mr Trump’s loyalist allies are burdoned with political baggage that is outright endangering the GOP’s chances of retaking the upper chamber in January.
