Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is ending his 2024 bid for the White House just days before the Iowa caucus, he announced Wednesday.
“It’s clear to me tonight that there isn’t a path for me to win the nomination,” Christie told the audience at a town hall in Windham, N.H.
The surprise move comes after Christie struggled to see gains in polling amid what many view as a scramble for second place between former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). Former President Trump, meanwhile, has continued to dominate the GOP primary field.
The former New Jersey governor’s decision will be mainly viewed as a boon for Haley, who has seen particular momentum in New Hampshire, where Christie was also putting a lot of his campaign’s energy.
Christie had launched his campaign in June, going after Trump and pitching himself as an alternative to the former president.
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The former governor also ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, and endorsed Trump after dropping out. In 2020, he worked with Trump’s 2020 campaign on debate prep.
But Christie has since been an outspoken critic of the former president. At the second GOP presidential debate in September, he called Trump out for not getting on the stage with his fellow competitors.
He has bashed Trump over his ongoing legal battles and warned voters that Trump is “not putting America first.”
Christie’s campaign had said that “the goal is to outlast” his fellow Republican candidates, trying to run a “spartan” campaign that brought in cash and kept its burn rate low.
In the third fundraising quarter, Christie brought in nearly $3.8 million, trailing fellow GOP candidates, including Haley and DeSantis, and well less than Trump.
Christie had also sought to paint his competitors in the context of their relationship to Trump. Haley and DeSantis “give me whiplash on where they stand with Donald Trump. They want to have it both ways and pretend that he’s not the issue in this race,” he said in November.
Christie had said in September that he would leave the 2024 race if he didn’t do well in the New Hampshire primary. Back in 2016, he ended his first White House bid just after finishing in a disappointing sixth place in the Granite State’s contest.