Chris Christie Bows Out of GOP Presidential Race

He could not scold Republicans into making him their champion, and so, after six months as a candidate, Chris Christie suspended his campaign in New Hampshire, but not before delivering one last lecture about democracy and the dangers of the GOP front runner, his old friend, Donald Trump.

The former New Jersey governor said he did not want to “enable Donald Trump to ever be president of the United States again.” He explained at a final town hall that this was “more important than my own personal ambition.” The republic itself, Christie warned, was at risk. He made no endorsements.

A prerequisite for his support: Rebuking Trump and Trumpism in all its forms. Anyone unwilling to call Trump unfit for the presidency, he said, was “unfit themselves to be President of the United States.”

A stark denunciation, it was also familiar. The Christie campaign was, in large part, a form of public penance for his previous support of Trump. But what exactly does Christie want the remaining Republicans to say? And how does he expect them to say it without suffering his same fate?

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has run as a sort of MAGA technocrat at times, providing an answer to the question of whether Trumpism without Trump was viable. He has criticized the former president on policy and temperament, dinging him for his response to the pandemic, his lack of follow through, and his willingness to weaponize government against political enemies.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, for her part, describes Trump as the right president for a time that has now passed, warning Republicans that giving him the nomination would spell electoral ruin.

More than anything, Haley and DeSantis, the only candidates to make the CNN debate at Drake University in Iowa, both argue that Trump should stop hiding from those contests. But neither has uttered the renunciation Christie requires, perhaps because they just watched his emulsion.

A bare-knuckled brawler during the 2016 primary, Christie again burned bright in 2023 on cable news and the talk show circuit. Then he fizzled. Christie never polled above 4% nationally in the RealClearPolitics Average.

Taking on Trump always promised to be a monumental task. As a former president, he enjoys universal name recognition and nearly all the advantages of incumbency. A populist and a celebrity, he has an army of loyal fans eager to see him deliver on his promise of “retribution.” When Christie dared to critique their champion, he heard their wrath.

He called into question the character of Trump, and a Trump-friendly crowd in Florida registered audible disapproval last November. Christie admonished that their “anger against the truth is reprehensible.”

“The problem is you fear the truth. The problem is you want to shout down any voice that says anything different than what you want to hear,” he said, later adding, “What a shock, you’re for Trump. I’m going to fall over dead.”

Christie was as good-natured on the campaign trail as he was brash. He reserved his critique specifically for his rival, not for those who supported him. Acerbic, certainly. Hostile, no. The former governor, for instance, never borrowed the language or adopted the temperament of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who infamously described Trump supporters as “deplorable.”

Nothing worked, though, for Christie. He went for Trump’s jugular and fell flat. It is unclear when exactly the former governor realized this cruel reality and began looking to future pursuits. Previously a paid ABC News contributor, he was the rare candidate to plug a forthcoming book on the campaign trail. But unlike the last time he ran unsuccessfully for president, Christie dropped out early.

“Campaigns are run to win. That’s why we do them,” he told voters in New Hampshire. “It’s clear to me tonight that there isn’t a path for me to win the nomination.”

He cast himself as a noble and somewhat tragic figure Wednesday. His mission was to torpedo Trump, a man whom he personally advised throughout even the most controversial days of his presidency. “My goal has never been to be just a voice against the hate and division and the selfishness of what our party has become under Donald Trump,” he explained as he exited. And while Christie failed to win the nomination, the governor promised not to lose the fight.

“I am going to make sure that in no way do I enable Donald Trump to ever be president of the United States again,” he vowed. “And that’s more important than my own personal ambition.”

While his time as a candidate may have ended, Christie may still have a role to play. Two recent polls have him at 12% in New Hampshire. An endorsement ahead of that state’s primary could boost Haley, delivering Trump his first loss at the hands of a Republican. By the end, Haley’s allies were practically begging Christie to drop out.

“There’s a huge opportunity for Chris to take a big, big win here and deny Trump’s victory,” New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu told RCP about the state’s primary. A Haley win in his state, Sununu said, would set the former president up for “another loss in South Carolina,” and “now the whole country is looking at this thing as a one-on-one race with a lot of opportunity to beat Trump.”

Eventually, Christie relented. On his way out the door, though, he may have diminished the value of his endorsement. He was caught on a hot mic criticizing the two Republicans with a chance to stop Trump.

“She spent $68 million so far,” Christie was heard saying of Haley. “And we spent 12. I mean, who’s punching above their weight and who’s getting a return on their investment?”

“She’s going to get smoked, you and I both know,” he added of the only candidate now surging. “She’s not up to this.”

DeSantis didn’t fare much better during this unintentional bull-session. Christie said that the Florida governor was “petrified,” but before he could finish his thought, the line was cut. A source familiar later told RCP that the two men had talked. DeSantis called Christie to compliment him on the race that he had run. Christie replied by calling Haley “a joke.” The exchange was first reported by NBC News.

Now, it is up to others to carry out the Christie mission of stopping Trump. It remains to be seen if they will meet his requirements for his endorsement or if they even want it. Christie was the most forceful of the entire field in his denunciation of the former president, after all, and that only earned the ire of Republicans, not their endorsement.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.