Chris Christie’s long-shot mission to torpedo Trump in 2024

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is entering the 2024 race for the White House with one mission: to torpedo Donald Trump’s campaign. But his low popularity among Republicans may thwart his efforts to launch a head-on attack.

Seven years ago, his failed bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination featured debate-stage fireworks, disappointing voting results and a surprisingly early endorsement of Mr Trump.

Now, Mr Christie will need to take the current front-runner down a peg and then position himself as the one who benefits.

“A lot of people are going to be gunning for Trump,” says Republican strategist and former party communication director Doug Heye. “There’s going to be a battle royal where everybody’s trying to throw Andre the Giant out of the ring. And once that happens, if that happens, the campaign resets.”

The brash New Jerseyan has some formidable obstacles to overcome.

He starts this campaign from the back of the presidential pack. Of the announced candidates so far, only Mr Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have any kind of widespread support in public opinion polls.

Mr Christie, according to a Fox News national survey of Republicans released last week, had the backing of less than 1% of respondents. A Quinnipiac Poll put him at 2%. Mr Trump led the field by more than 30% in each.

To change this dynamic, Mr Christie will have to take advantage of limited opportunities. The most prominent is the series of upcoming Republican presidential debates that begin in late August.

Back in 2016, Mr Christie used a debate shortly before the New Hampshire primary to eviscerate Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who was surging in the polls at the time, as too programmed and robotic. The former governor’s task will be to use his sharp tongue and aggressive attitude to achieve similar success against Mr Trump.

“You better have somebody on that stage who can do to him what I did to Marco, because that’s the only thing that’s going to defeat Donald Trump,” Mr Christie said in March. “And that means you have to be fearless, because he will come back right at you.”

Doug Heye, the Republican strategist, says Mr Christie has the political instincts and talent to create a similar debate moment this time.

“Christie is not somebody who’s coming in merely to pad speech fees, do book tours and all those other things that people who really have no chance get into the race to do,” he says. “Clearly he’s somebody who potentially could pop Trump’s balloon.”

The problem for Mr Christie is that he may never get the chance.

The Republican Party has set somewhat stringent requirements to qualify for its debates, including having a minimum number of campaign donors from across the US and at least 1% support in three recent party-approved public-opinion polls.

Even if the former governor qualifies, Mr Trump has reportedly been considering skipping the early debates, leaving the non-Trump candidates to spar amongst themselves.

Outside of the debates, Mr Christie’s plan hinges on courting voters in New Hampshire, the state that follows Iowa on the Republican presidential primary calendar.

He will have his work cut out for him there. A recent survey of Republican voters in the state showed Mr Christie with a net favourability of negative 44%, the worst of any announced or potential candidates. A majority of the voters in that state know him – and don’t like him.

Polls show that Republican voters do like Mr Trump, however. That reflects the reality of a party transformed by Mr Trump and his populist style of politics.

Mr Christie hastened that shift back in February 2016 when he became the most prominent establishment Republican politician to back the unconventional candidate at the time.

The endorsement fuelled speculation that Mr Christie would become Mr Trump’s vice-presidential running mate or join his administration as a Cabinet official. Such offers never materialised, however. And over time, Mr Christie – who initially said he was “happy to be on team Trump” – began criticising his former ally.

In the months after Mr Trump left office in 2021, following the 6 January attack by the president’s supporters on the US Capitol and months of denying his electoral defeat, Mr Christie’s views on Mr Trump have become pointed and fiery.

“Donald Trump is a TV star, nothing more, nothing less,” he said in New Hampshire in April. “Let me suggest to you that in putting him back in the White House, the reruns will be worse than the original show.”

Republican voters may not want what the former governor is offering as an alternative.

Mr Christie’s own final years in office as New Jersey governor were marred by controversy. In 2017, after his unsuccessful presidential bid, he was photographed lounging with family on an otherwise empty New Jersey state beach that had been closed to the public during a budget dispute between the governor and state. That episode made the governor an object of national ridicule.

By entering the 2024 presidential race, he will hope to rewrite his political epitaph. But he’ll have to go through Donald Trump to do it.