Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may be best known at least on the presidential debate stage for tearing down rivals rather than building up.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may be best known – at least on the presidential debate stage – for tearing down rivals rather than building up fellow Republicans.
In a 2016 GOP primary debate, he famously roughed up Marco Rubio in a debate at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. Christie dismissed the first-term Floridian as a Senate no-show who had missed too many votes and simply repeated manufactured talking points. The move was widely credited with knocking Rubio out of a top contender spot.
But Christie also has spent the last several years helping the Republican Party raise money and lead tedious state-by-state legal battles to redraw congressional lines. His efforts in 2022 paid off: New York Democrats over-reached in skewing new district lines in their favor, generating jokes and criticism from the right to the far left.
Christie, who co-chaired the national redistricting efforts along with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, helped fight those Democratic congressional maps and won. Even though the predicted “red wave” never materialized, Republicans flipped four seats in New York, including that of Sean Patrick Maloney, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Committee, helping to hand House Republicans a slim majority and Rep. Kevin McCarthy the speakership.
“He certainly built up goodwill among politicians, and officials around the country with his work on redistricting,” John Faso, a former New York congressman who served as a spokesman for the GOP-backed redistricting challenges, told RealClearPolitics. “How that translates into the presidential race, I wouldn’t speculate on.”
“He gets his point of view across. There’s no mistaking what he’s trying to say, and I think that’s refreshing,” Faso added.
At 60, Christie is a well-known GOP commodity with a long and colorful political career. In addition to two terms as New Jersey governor, Christie was a popular chairman of the Republican Governors Association, helping his fellow GOP governors get elected and building ties to big GOP donors in the coveted post for any aspiring presidential candidate.
His work on behalf of his party is widely appreciated among some corners of the GOP. Still, he could squander that residual goodwill if his long-shot candidacy does nothing more than rough up the leading Republican candidates in the race – Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – rather than change the outcome. Pompeo, who co-chaired the GOP redistricting effort, is notably bypassing a 2024 presidential run.
Indeed, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu also bowed out of a potential presidential run, explaining on Monday he decided not to join the crowded field because too many candidates would splinter votes and only help Trump win the nomination.
