Chris Christie’s candidacy is pointless
Christie #Christie
Earlier today, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie filed paperwork to run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. It doesn’t take a genius to see why this is a terrible idea. It is true that CNN just ran a piece titled “Why Chris Christie has a plausible path to 2024 victory” — but I guess that says more about CNN than it does about Christie’s actual chances. Here is the reality.
Christie has wanted to be president for more than a decade at this point, but his chances of actually winning likely have gone only down each consecutive year. When RealClearPolitics first started polling for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination in 2013, Christie was on top. However, by the time February 2015 rolled around, he dipped below 10% in polling and never rose above that threshold again. Once the debates started, he polled well below 5%.
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This was all for the 2016 election — when he was expected to do well. Fast-forward seven years later, and he is completely irrelevant politically. We occasionally see him on cable news, but he has done nothing substantive in politics for quite some time.
This presents the single biggest issue with his candidacy: He has no constituency. Basically everyone who supported him back at his peak in 2013 eventually decided to support someone else. This left him with almost no support by the end of the 2016 race. The question then becomes this: What has Christie done in the past seven years to convince all the people who supported someone else in 2016 to support him now? The answer is nothing.
We know this is the case because current polling has him at about 1% — which doesn’t surprise anyone. This is a predictable outcome when Christie left the last elected position he held with a 14% approval rating. CNN Reports that “Christie believes he is best-positioned to take on Trump in the primary while also appealing to independents in a potential general election,” but I can list many who could do better: Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) … need I go on?
In short, Christie has no chance of winning, and everybody knows it.
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But this does not mean his candidacy can simply be ignored and considered harmless. The truth is that Christie deciding to run makes it more likely that former President Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination. The reason is straightforward: He takes away votes from DeSantis, who currently enjoys by far the greatest support of all non-Trump candidates. Christie’s candidacy functions only to further split up the non-Trump vote — thus paving his way with gold toward the nomination. If anti-Trumpers like Chris Christie actually care about defeating Trump, then it is profoundly imprudent to continue splitting up the non-Trump vote into ever-smaller pieces. It simply makes no sense.
In the end, this seems to be primarily about attempting to resurrect a dead political career. Christie should have put humility first, followed in the footsteps of Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH), and refrained from throwing his hat in the ring.
Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.
Tags: Opinion, Beltway Confidential, Chris Christie, 2024 Elections, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis
Original Author: Jack Elbaum
Original Location: Chris Christie’s candidacy is pointless