Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who advised Donald Trump’s White House campaign in 2016 only to become a vocal critic of the former US president in recent months, will launch a bid for the Republican presidential nomination 2024 next week, according to news reports. citing sources familiar with the plan.
Christie, 60, enters the race a decided underdog, six years after his 2016 presidential campaign failed to gain traction amid a crowded field that included Trump. Just 1 percent of Republicans said she would be his preferred candidate for 2024 in a Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted May 9-15.
Christie, a former federal prosecutor, has cast himself as the only potential candidate willing to aggressively take on Trump, the current favorite 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. Since then, Christie has become one of Trump’s leading critics.
Christie dropped out of the 2016 presidential race one day after finishing sixth in the New Hampshire primary.
Ending weeks of speculation about his intentions, Christie will officially launch his campaign at a town hall at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire on Tuesday, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters, confirming earlier reports from the publication Axios.
Christie has urged her party to put behind Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 election was rigged, including in her book Republican Rescue. In theory, that stance could win him some support from moderate Republicans eager to turn the page, though it will alienate Trump’s still-powerful voter base.
In March, Christie told Axios that he would not vote for Trump in 2024, even if the former president were the Republican nominee. He, too, has argued in public appearances that only he has the skill and the will to go toe to toe with the bellicose Trump.
“As we all know here in New Jersey, the Governor is a proven leader who fearlessly tells it like it is,” Bill Palatucci, a longtime Christie adviser who will chair a political action committee that will supports your candidacy. members of the Republican State Committee on Tuesday.
Christie has played the attack dog role before. In a memorable debate appearance shortly before his 2016 campaign ended, Christie mocked U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio for memorizing lines from him, a performance many viewed as irreparable damage to Rubio’s campaign.
Trump, who announced his campaign last year, leads among Republicans in public polls.
Besides Trump, others Republicans Running for President they are governor of florida ron desantisUS Senator Tim Scott, Former Governor of South Carolina nikki haley, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, and biotech entrepreneur and “anti-awakening” activist Vivek Ramaswamy. Former Vice President Mike Pence and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu are among those considering the candidacies.
The candidate would face Democratic President Joe Biden, whose re-election campaign faces no notable opposition within the party.
Christie, a two-term governor of Democratic-leaning New Jersey, was once seen as a rising Republican star who had rare cross-party appeal.
But his second term was marred by the “Bridgegate” scandal, unique to New Jersey, in which two of his aides were accused of deliberately closing lanes on the heavily traveled George Washington Bridge to punish a local mayor who refused to endorse Christie’s re-election campaign.
Meanwhile, Christie’s relationship with Trump and his family has taken a tortuous turn. As a New Jersey federal prosecutor, she prosecuted Charles Kushner, the father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, for tax evasion and other crimes.
He and Trump exchanged a lot of criticism during the early stages of the 2016 campaign. But just a few weeks later quit the racechristie endorsed trump over other rivals, boosting his candidacy at a critical moment.
Although he served as a Trump campaign adviser, Christie became a political liability late in his career, when witnesses testified during his aides’ criminal trial that he knew of the bridge’s lane closures. Christie has denied knowing about the plot until later.
However, Christie was passed over, first for vice president and then for attorney general. Three days after Trump’s upset victory, Christie was fired as head of Trump’s White House transition team.
Since the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, Christie has hit trump On numerous occasions. He blamed the former president for the disappointing performance of Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections and called Trump’s conduct “unacceptable” after a federal jury found Trump responsible for sexually abusing writer E Jean Carroll in the 1990s. 1990.
Christie was also a candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, but was defeated by eventual nominee Mitt Romney.
