Chris Christie’s ‘Kamikaze Candidacy’ Aimed at Trump

Chris Christie isn’t expected to win the war for the presidency. But he believes he’s built for battle with Donald Trump.

And that alone could make Christie a winner, of sorts, after the former New Jersey governor launches his campaign for president today in New Hampshire and makes good on his pledge to take on Trump.

“It’s a Kamikaze candidacy, but it’s not a Kamikaze campaign in this respect: Running for president is big business — it can be a no-lose proposition,” said Gregg Keller, a Republican consultant from Missouri who’s not aligned with any presidential campaign.

“It’s particularly true for a Republican who’s kind of a never-Trump Republican – and Chris Christie is more or less in that camp now,” he said. “Even if you lose, it gives you the opportunity to be on TV, to get a cable gig, to write a book. It’s all kinds of opportunities.”

A Christie adviser, who was not authorized to speak on the record, told The Messenger that Christie is the only candidate other than Trump who has run for president and who won’t wilt under the bright lights of a debate stage, pointing out that Christie – a former federal prosecutor with a reputation for speaking his mind – figuratively dismantled Sen. Marco Rubio in a 2016 New Hampshire debate stage and wrecked the Florida Republican’s White House hopes.

"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 gonna defeat Donald Trump," Christie said earlier this year.

Alex Conant, who was a spokesman for Rubio’s senate office and then presidential campaign, said Christie should be taken seriously because he has a campaign team with a good reputation and he’s the only one in the race who has run for president before.

“He’s going to throw himself 100 percent into the race. He has nothing to lose, which makes him dangerous,” Conant said. “He’s the first attack dog in the race. Everybody else is trying to introduce themselves, run a holistic campaign. It’s pretty clear that Christie is there to take down Trump.”

Christie enters the race in a bad place: disliked by Republican voters, according to the most recent survey of national primary voters conducted by Monmouth University, based in his home state. The poll showed that only 21 percent have a favorable impression of Christie compared to 47 percent who had a negative view of him, giving him a net favorable rating of -26 percentage points among Republican voters.

Monmouth’s pollster, Patrick Murray, said his polling showed that the last time Christie found himself in positive territory was in its December 2014 poll of the 2016 Republican presidential primary field, when the then-governor’s net favorable rating was +2. Christie dropped out of the 2016 race after he came in sixth place in New Hampshire, and then he left the New Jersey governor’s mansion with historically low ratings two years later, Murray said.

Christie’s popularity problems in the GOP began in 2012 after he hosted then-President Barack Obama in the wake of Tropical Storm Sandy devastating his state. It was just days before Obama won reelection, and many Republicans felt Christie was being disloyal to the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, for not picking the governor as his running mate. Months later, Christie’s staff was engulfed in the “Bridgegate” scandal.

"The guy, as a person, is horrific," top Romney fundraiser and lobbyist Brian Ballard, who now supports Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s campaigns, said of Christie years later. 

But despite all the knocks on Christie in the 2016 presidential race — including Trump insulting Christie’s weight on the campaign trail — and scandals in office as governor, he went on to become a TV pundit, an author, a well-paid lobbyist and an adviser to Trump, whom Christie endorsed after he quit the 2016 presidential race. 

Christie and Trump eventually had a falling out over the former president’s refusal to accept his 2020 reelection loss and his incitement of the mob that rioted in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

But Christie might go after DeSantis as well Trump. Christie recently, for instance, criticized DeSantis for his feud with Disney World. DeSantis is currently running in a distant second behind Trump in early state and national polls, and many Republicans worry that the crowded “clown car primary” will only help Trump, consolidating his base of supporters as the rest of the field carves up the non-Trump vote.

The day before Christie’s announcement, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu declared that he wouldn’t run for president. Sununu, who has fretted about the large field, doesn’t want Trump to be the party’s nominee.

Jim Merrill, a top Republican consultant from New Hampshire, said Christie could prove attractive to Granite State voters attracted to his bio as a moderate problem solver who isn’t scared to speak his mind.

“He’s got a steep hill to climb,” Merrill said. “But he’s got a helluva lot of political talent.”