Tweet Share Share Comment Before sacrificing himself on the altar of Nikki Haley, the last great anti-Trump Republican hope, Chris Christie torched her as an opponent one final time on Wednesday.
“She’s gonna get smoked,” Christie was overheard saying on a livestream to a New Hampshire Republican politico, just before an event where he would suspend his presidential campaign. “You and I both know it,” he continued. “She’s not up to this.” Christie said that an undefined “they” don’t “want to hear it,” and noted that Haley had spent $68 million to Christie’s $12 million thus far. “I mean, who’s punching above their weight?”
The audio finally cut off after Christie mentioned that Ron DeSantis had called him, “petrified that I would—” A cliffhanger!
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This episode has been described universally as a “hot mic” moment, a phrase implying that the speaker didn’t intend for his words to be received publicly. Perhaps, though I’ve seen no conclusive evidence of that intent. It could also have been a backdoor parting shot from a notoriously petty politician being squeezed out of the race against his will to benefit someone he views as a lightweight, if not an impostor.
So why would Christie, then, end what’s probably his last campaign to benefit a candidate he views as a lesser, before any votes have been cast? For the same reason politicians do anything: blame-avoidance.
Christie, who played a critical role in Donald Trump’s ascent to the presidency in 2016 as a key early endorser, cast his 2024 candidacy as redemptive. He portrayed himself as the only candidate willing to tell the truth about Trump—that he was a dangerous con man, a buffoon unfit for the presidency. He promised to take it directly to Trump on the debate stage in a way that other candidates, who agreed with him privately but were too scared of Trump’s base to voice it, wouldn’t. When Trump opted not to participate in the debates, Christie trained his fire instead on direct Trump proxy muppets (Vivek Ramaswamy) and the cowards who strained not to mention Trump at all (everyone else).
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This strategy made Christie a star among greenroom anti-Trump Republicans and liberals prone to finding strange new respect. Let’s face it: It added a touch of fun to a primary bereft of it.
But the strategy also instantly put a low ceiling on Christie’s polling prospects. Most Republicans love Trump, which is why he’s the commanding front-runner in the Republican presidential primary. Going directly after him as a fraud sharply limited Christie’s ability to grow.
The one state where this strategy allowed Christie to gain a modest foothold, though, was New Hampshire, where the electorate is the most moderate of the early primary states and where this year’s zombie Democratic primary will prompt more crossover voting. Christie had been polling in a comfortable, if distant, third place in the primary, with his average support in the low double digits.
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Over the past month, though, that chunk of support for the most anti-Trump candidate has become inconvenient to the larger anti-Trump cause.
Haley has surged in New Hampshire, becoming the first candidate to get within something resembling striking distance of Trump in any early nominating contest. Individual polls vary, but the average gap between Haley and Trump in the state almost exactly matches Christie’s level of support there—and Haley is the overwhelming second choice of Christie voters. There are vanishingly few scenarios in which Trump is not the 2024 Republican presidential nominee. The only faintly observable one begins with Haley parlaying a silver-medal ceremony in Iowa into a New Hampshire primary victory. And the latter would be much more achievable with Christie out of the way.
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And so, everyone began yelling at Christie to get out of the way. Popular New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who endorsed Haley, urged Christie to “be the hero” and clear the ground for Haley, observing that Christie had “hit his limit” in support. Christie’s donors were reportedly considering an “intervention.” The pleading had reached a cacophony.
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Christie didn’t take kindly to being cornered. He went on the air in late December with a direct-to-camera ad in New Hampshire telling his critics to eat it. He’s been almost as vituperative toward Sununu since the governor’s Haley endorsement as he has been to Trump.
Much of Christie’s refusal to budge could be ascribed to ego. His is substantial, even by politicians’ standards. But there was an element of truth to the public argument he was making against Haley: that she was ultimately angling to be Trump’s running mate and wouldn’t risk torching that opportunity by doing what it took to beat Trump.
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“I would be happy to get out of the way for someone who is actually running against Donald Trump,” Christie said at a Tuesday town hall in New Hampshire. That, however, was not Haley.
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“Let’s say I dropped out of the race right now and I supported Nikki Haley,” Christie explained. “And then, three months from now, four months from now, when you’re ready to go to the convention, she comes out as his vice president. What will I look like? What will all the people who supported her at my behest look like?
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Nikki Haley Pulled a Bizarre Stunt With Her Husband. Maybe We All Should.
Read More The element of truth is that Haley may well just be angling for vice president and won’t use everything in her arsenal to try to beat Trump. That may even be the likely case.
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Where Christie’s argument fell short, though, was that there was no better option to stopping Trump than betting it all on the potential double agent. What would he, and the people who supported Haley at his behest, look like if Christie dropped out and endorsed her before New Hampshire—only to eventually watch Haley come out as Trump’s running mate? They’d look like people who did their part to preserve the only evident pathway toward nominating a non-Trump Republican for president at the time, even if it hadn’t worked out.
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Christie, summoning all of his Jersey muster, chose to split the baby. He quit the race to afford Haley the opportunity to win New Hampshire—but instead of endorsing her, he trash-talked her in private remarks that just so happened to be picked up by reporters. Very well.
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The Haley moonshot may go nowhere. She’s still not ahead in New Hampshire, and she could lose it in a blowout. And even if she did win it, the next stop would be a considerably more conservative electorate in South Carolina where she can’t rely on home-field advantage to rescue her. South Carolina Republicans love Trump. So do the Republicans in Super Tuesday states. Haley will have to find a way, beyond New Hampshire, to broaden her appeal beyond the upscale Republicans who are embarrassed to be Republicans.
What Christie ensured by dropping out, though, was that if Haley lost New Hampshire by a handful of points, he wouldn’t go down in history as the “anti-Trump” candidate who blocked off the last best chance to stop Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. He wouldn’t absorb, fairly or unfairly, Nader-esque blame for potential calamities to come. If Haley peters out and falls in line behind Trump, Christie can say I told you so; if she pulls off the upset of the decade, he can take his fair share of credit. He ultimately saw past his pride and took the win-win that was on the table.
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