Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie — who advised Donald Trump’s White House campaign in 2016 but became a vocal critic of the former U.S. president in recent months — will bid next week for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination , according to news reports. citing sources familiar with the plan.
Christie, 60, enters the race as a decided underdog, six years after his 2016 presidential campaign failed to gain traction amid a crowded field that also included Trump. Only one percent of Republicans said he would be their favorite candidate for 2024 in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted May 9-15.
Christie, a former federal prosecutor, has cast herself as the only potential candidate willing to aggressively run against Trump, the current front-runner for the nomination. He was a longtime friend and adviser to Trump, but broke with the former president over his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election. Christie has since emerged as a leading critic of Trump.
Christie dropped out of the 2016 presidential race a day after finishing sixth in the New Hampshire primary.
Christie ends weeks of speculation about his intentions and will officially launch his campaign on Tuesday at a Saint Anselm College town hall in New Hampshire, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters, confirming previous reports from the publication Axios .
Christie has urged his party to move forward with Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was rigged, including in his book Republican Rescue. That stance could, in theory, earn him some support from moderate Republicans eager to turn the page, though it will alienate Trump’s still-powerful voters.
In March, Christie told Axios he would not vote for Trump in 2024, even though the former president was the Republican nominee. He has also argued in public appearances that he alone has the skill and willingness to take on the combative Trump.
“As we all know here in New Jersey, the governor is a proven leader who fearlessly speaks his mind,” Bill Palatucci, a longtime Christie adviser who will chair a political action committee supporting his candidacy, wrote in a message to New Jersey. Jersey Members of the Republican State Committee on Tuesday.
Christie has previously played the role of an attack dog. In a memorable debate appearance shortly before ending his 2016 campaign, Christie mocked U.S. Senator Marco Rubio for memorizing his lines, a feat widely viewed as irreparably damaging to Rubio’s campaign.
Trump, who announced his campaign last year, is leading among Republicans in public polls.
Besides Trump, other Republicans running for president include Florida governor Ron DeSantis, U.S. Senator Tim Scott, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, and biotech entrepreneur and “anti-woke” activist Vivek Ramaswamy. Former Vice President Mike Pence and New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu are among the nominees.
The nominee would run against Democratic President Joe Biden, whose re-election campaign faces no significant opposition within the party.
The brash and charismatic Christie, a two-term governor from Democratic-leaning New Jersey, was once seen as a rising Republican star with rare all-party appeal.
But his second term was tainted by the “Bridgegate” scandal, New Jersey’s only, in which two of his aides were accused of deliberately closing lanes at the heavily trafficked George Washington Bridge to punish a local mayor who refused to give his to provide support. Christie’s reelection campaign.
Meanwhile, Christie’s relationship with Trump and his family has taken a tortuous path. As a U.S. attorney for New Jersey, he prosecuted Charles Kushner, the father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, for tax evasion and other crimes.
He and Trump traded many barbs during the early stages of the 2016 campaign. But just weeks after dropping out of the race, Christie endorsed Trump over other rivals, boosting his candidacy at a critical time.
While serving as Trump campaign adviser, Christie became politically liable late in the race, when witnesses at his aides’ criminal trial testified that he was aware of the bridge strip closures. Christie has denied knowing about the plot until later.
Still, Christie was passed over, first for vice president and later for attorney general. Three days after Trump’s surprise victory, Christie was fired as head of Trump’s White House transition team.
Since the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, Christie has repeatedly jabbed Trump. He blamed the former president for the Republicans’ disappointing performance in the 2022 midterm elections and called Trump’s behavior “unacceptable” after a federal jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting writer E Jean Carroll in the 1970s. Ninety.
Christie was also a candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, but was defeated by eventual nominee Mitt Romney.