Will Chris Christie’s Departure From the Race Help Nikki Haley?

Chris Christie officially dropped out of the presidential race Wednesday after repeated calls from New Hampshire’s governor, Chris Sununu, and other Nikki Haley supporters to do so — but will this help Ms. Haley’s campaign?News that Mr. Christie would be suspending his presidential campaign at a town hall in Windham, New Hampshire leaked shortly before the event. The move was somewhat expected — Mr. Christie had not campaigned much outside New Hampshire, where he was polling in a distant third place — but the timing caught many close to the Christie campaign by surprise.As recently as Tuesday, Mr. Christie had been bucking calls for him to step aside, calling Mr. Sununu a “liar” for saying on CNN that Mr. Christie was in talks with his steering committee to drop out. And in a sign of just how last-minute Mr. Christie’s decision likely was, a Christie campaign ad aired on CNN Wednesday night just before the start of the 9pm DeSantis-Haley debate.The calls from Mr. Sununu and other Haley supporters for Mr. Christie to drop out of the race were relentless in recent weeks. Yet that’s likely not what changed Mr. Christie’s mind. Before the start of the event in Windham, a hot mic picked up Mr. Christie speaking backstage to his New Hampshire campaign chairman, Wayne MacDonald.“She’s going to get smoked. You and I both know, she’s not up to this,” Mr. Christie was heard saying, in reference to Ms. Haley. He also criticized Mr. DeSantis for outspending him but not getting a “return on investment.”Mr. Christie declined to endorse Ms. Haley or another candidate. He did not take questions from the audience or reporters.Mr. Christie’s whole campaign was predicated on opposing President Trump. Even in his speech Wednesday night, he criticized the other Republican candidates for not going hard enough against Mr. Trump. “Anyone who is unwilling to say [Trump] is unfit to be president of the United States is unfit for the job themselves,” he said.Yet by staying in the race, Mr. Christie risked being seen as a spoiler to the most viable — according to polls — Republican alternative to Mr. Trump: Ms. Haley.A CNN/University of New Hampshire poll released earlier this week shows Ms. Haley within just seven points of Mr. Trump in the state. The poll found Mr. Trump with 39 percent support to Ms. Haley’s 32 percent, with Mr. Christie in third place at 12 percent. If that were the final primary election tally, Mr. Christie would risk being blamed for Mr. Trump’s win.While the CNN poll may be an outlier — a Boston Globe/Suffolk poll also released this week shows Ms. Haley 20 points behind Mr. Trump — most polls show Ms. Haley is the second-choice pick for Mr. Christie’s supporters. Both attract independents, moderate Republicans, and anti-Trump voters. The Boston Globe poll shows both have substantially more support from New Hampshire’s undeclared voters, who can vote in either party’s primary, than they do from registered Republicans in the state.“It is clear to me tonight that there is no path for me to win the nomination, which is why I’m suspending my campaign tonight for president of the United States,” Mr. Christie said. “I want to promise you this: I want to make sure that in no way do I enable Donald Trump to ever be president of the United States again, and that is more important than my personal ambition.”Yet at the event Wednesday, the Sun spoke with several attendees who all said with Mr. Christie out, they didn’t know for whom they would vote. “It’s very unlikely to be Governor Haley. Who it will be? I don’t know,” Mr. MacDonald told the Sun. “I will not vote for Nikki Haley.”“Certainly Ron DeSantis is a consideration,” Mr. MacDonald added. “Asa Hutchinson is still in the race … Like Governor Christie in that first debate, he did not also raise his hand that he would support felon Trump.”A member of the Christie steering committee, Toni Pappas, told the Sun she doesn’t know who to support now. “I have no idea. I need to think about it,” she said.A Christie campaign volunteer, Catherine Johnson, told the Sun she is “heartbroken” that Mr. Christie suspended his campaign and said, “It came out of left field.” She was a Democrat who registered “undeclared” to vote for Mr. Christie. There are 4,000 such Democrats in the state, according to the secretary of state, David Scanlon. Ms. Haley’s only path to victory is from a high turnout of undeclared, independent voters.“I’m now done with the GOP and I’ll go work for Joe Biden tomorrow,” Ms. Johnson said.While these are among Mr. Christie’s most hardcore supporters and disappointment reigned at the event, their comments suggest that not all Christie voters will be jumping over to the Haley ship. A member of Mr. Christie’s New Hampshire steering committee who left to endorse Ms. Haley late last month, Tom Boucher, told the Sun he had a 45-minute phone call with Mr. Christie on Sunday in which he urged the former New Jersey governor to drop out of the race. “He said, ‘If I do get out, I’m not going to endorse Nikki Haley,’” Mr. Boucher said. “He’s repeatedly said, ‘How would I look to my supporters if I came out and endorsed Nikki Haley only to find out she accepts the VP position from Trump.’”Ms. Haley responded to the Christie news on X, saying that Mr. Christie is “a friend” and commended him for “a hard-fought campaign.” Mr. DeSantis posted to X, “I agree with Christie that Nikki Haley is ‘going to get smoked.’”“I happen to believe that Chris Christie is right,” Mr. Trump said at a Fox News townhall Wednesday night about the hot mic comments. “That’s one of the few things he’s been right about, actually.”

Will Chris Christie’s Departure From the Race Help Nikki Haley?

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