Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie filed paperwork Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission, a technical step as the 2016 Republican presidential contender and political brawler gets ready to declare his candidacy for a second White House run in hopes of taking down former President Donald Trump.
Christie, 60, will formally launch his campaign at a town hall Tuesday evening at Saint Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics, sources familiar with Christie’s thinking confirmed to Fox News last week. New Hampshire is the state that holds the first primary and second overall contest in the Republican presidential nominating calendar.
Christie allies last week launched a super PAC to support the former governor’s 2024 presidential campaign. The formation of the group, called Tell It Like It Is, was considered a key step ahead of Christie’s entry into the White House race.
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Considered one of the best communicators in the GOP, Christie was once a strong ally of then-President Trump but has become one of the former president’s most vocal GOP critics.
Christie, who was first elected governor of deep-blue New Jersey in 2009 and overwhelming re-elected in 2013, first ran for president in the 2016 cycle.
He placed all his chips in New Hampshire, but his 2016 campaign crashed and burned after a disappointing and distant sixth-place finish in the state. He was far behind Trump, who crushed the competition in the primary, boosting him towards the nomination and eventually the White House.
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Christie became the first among the other GOP 2016 contenders to endorse Trump, and for years was a top outside adviser to the then-president and chaired Trump’s high-profile commission on opioids. However, the two had a falling out after Trump’s unsuccessful attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Biden. In the past two years, Christie has become one of the most vocal Trump critics in the GOP.
Christie has been publicly mulling a 2024 presidential run for over a year and a half, and recently has repeatedly chimed in on his dissatisfaction with the state of the race. He’s expressed discontent with the Republican field, accusing candidates of not being willing to take on the front-runner directly.
Christie, known during his tenure for the kind of in-your-face politics that Trump has also mastered, has argued that he’s got the debate chops to potentially take down Trump should he face off with the former president.
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“I know what I’m good at. I know how to articulate an argument. I know how to make it. I know how to land it. And I feel like I have the ideas that people are genuinely attracted to. So if you have those things, you have a good chance to be able to do it. No guarantees, but a good chance,” Christie told Fox News Digital during an April stop in New Hampshire.
Pointing to his potential rivals, Christie said “as to the others, you guys will have to judge the others. I just know who I am, and I think you all know who I am and what I’ve been able to do before under the brightest of lights… lots of people can do things when the lights aren’t the brightest. But when those lights get really bright and everybody’s watching, can you perform or can’t you? And that’s a lot about what these races have to do with.”
But with the Republican National Committee last week unveiling debate criteria that includes 40,000 individual donors and at least one percent in polling, whether Christie or some other of the long-shot contenders make the stage is an open question.
And Christie’s unfavorable ratings among Republicans in public opinion polling are some of the highest in the field of GOP presidential contenders
Trump, pointing to Christie’s standing in the polls, said last week at a Fox News town hall in Iowa: “I hear Chris Christie’s coming in…What’s the purpose?”
Christie also recently lashed out at Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another rival who declared his candidacy for president in May, over the Florida governor’s attacks on Disney and it’s “woke” antics.
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Since leaving office, Christie has worked for ABC News as a contributor and as a lobbyist.
It’s likely that going forward Christie will once again spend much of his time campaigning in New Hampshire.
When asked in April if he would concentrate a 2024 campaign in New Hampshire, at the expense of the other early voting states of Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada, Christie told Fox News Digital: “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that all the way through yet. But I like New Hampshire.”
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Trump remains the overwhelming front-runner in the early GOP presidential nomination polls after launching his third straight White House run in November. Christie stands at less than 1% support in the latest Fox News national poll in the race for the Republican nomination.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) quickly took aim at Christie as he entered the race.
“Nothing he says can change the fact that Chris Christie is just another power-hungry extremist in the rapidly growing field of Republicans willing to say anything to capture the MAGA base,” DNC chair Jaime Harrison argued in a statement.
Christie joins a field that also includes former Vice President Mike Pence, who filed paperwork with the FEC on Monday, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former two-term Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, multimillionaire entrepreneur and conservative commentator Vivek Ramaswamy, Michigan businessman Perry Johnson, and radio talk show host and former California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder.
South Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is expected to announce his candidacy on Wednesday.
Additionally, former Reps. Will Hurd of Texas and Mike Rogers of Michigan, and Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami, Florida are also seriously mulling 2024 bids.
Fox News’ Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report