Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie is facing more and more pressure to exit the race from the centre-right faction of his party opposed to Donald Trump.
The former governor of New Jersey is running in the low to mid-single digits in national and statewide polling as he battles with the likes of Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy for the Republican nomination. But unlike his rivals, much of Mr Christie’s campaign has focused on calling out the obvious facts about Mr Trump: His ongoing legal challenges brought on by his conduct leading up to and during the January 6 attack on Congress.
For that reason, his candidacy and campaigning style have delighted members of the anti-Trump right as well as some Democratic-aligned pundits in the media. And for that same reason, he is now facing calls to step aside. The reason? Nikki Haley.
Ms Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, has in recent weeks emerged as possibly the most credible challenger to Donald Trump for the Republican nomination. Amid the slow descent of Florida’s Ron DeSantis in the polls, Ms Haley has surged in both statewide and national polling, including most crucially in surveys of the first two GOP nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. The latter state appears to be her first real shot at beating Mr Trump outright; a new poll on Thursday from the American Research Group indicated that the race is now competitive between the two.
But that same poll (and others like it) have also illuminated one thing: that Mr Christie, whose voters are currently backing the most vocal anti-Trump candidate in the race, may in effect be serving to boost the former president’s campaign due to the ongoing reluctance of those Republicans who want someone besides the former president to take the reins of the party to unify. The prospect of a rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in 2024 becomes all the more likely if the race does not narrow down quickly, given the former president’s consolidation of roughly half of all GOP primary voters nationwide, if polling is correct.
Mr Christie rejected that assertion out of hand on Thursday when he sat down for an interview with Hugh Hewitt, a conservative broadcaster and perennial debate moderator. The ex-governor retorted that his campaign’s polling indicated that were he to drop out of the race, many of his voters would stay home rather than support Ms Haley or Mr DeSantis — and some would even back Mr Trump.
Hewitt pressed him relentlessly on the issue, however, and in the end, the entire 10-minute interview was largely centred on his badgering of Mr Christie to get out of the race and, presumably, endorse Ms Haley.
“The fact is, I’m running for president of the United States, and no one’s voted yet. I don’t have an obligation to do anything, other than answer questions, tell the truth, run a good campaign and try to win,” Mr Christie told Hewitt.
As their conversation progressed, the governor grew heated over the repeated insistence that he should drop out and the refusal of Hewitt to address other topics.
“I have to tell you the truth, Hugh,” said Mr Christie. “You have interviewed me probably a hundred times. I’ve never had a less substantive interview with you in my life.”
“But it’s actually the most substantive interview,” Hewitt responded, before attempting to persuade Mr Christie of the urgency presented by the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. “We’re down to the quarter stretch.”
“No. This is, this is not news, Hugh,” the governor shot back.
Ms Haley’s campaign recently posted her best fundraising quarter total yet, with the former governor raking in $24m in the last period of 2023. She still trails Donald Trump in that regard, however, though the former president is also beset by unprecedented legal fees which his rivals do not have to worry about.
Mr Christie, by comparison, was just excluded from CNN’s upcoming debate in the state of Iowa ahead of the first-in-the-nation caucuses on the 15th.
He remains ahead of rivals Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy in New Hampshire, however, and could see life breathed into his campaign with a strong performance in the second contest.
