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Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Wednesday that he’s dropping out of the race to become the 2024 Republican presidential nominee.
“It’s clear to me tonight that there isn’t a path for me to win the nomination, which is why I’m suspending my campaign tonight for president of the United States,” Christie said in a speech at a campaign event in New Hampshire.
The decision is likely to be viewed as a boost to GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley, who is coming in second to front-runner Donald Trump in most polling for key early states.
Supporters of Christie, who made an effort to position himself as the main anti-Trump Republican candidate, probably won’t switch to Trump but would instead prefer Haley.
“It’s the right thing for me to do, because I want to promise you this: I am going to make sure that in no way do I enable Donald Trump to ever be president of the United States again,” Christie said during his speech Wednesday. There has been a lot of attention on how splitting the non-Trump vote helps the former president’s 2024 campaign.
Christie’s exit could help Haley, in particular, in the Jan. 23 primary in New Hampshire, where she has 29% support, according to a RealClearPolitics moving average of polls. Adding Christie’s 12% support in the state — which had put him in third place — to Haley’s level would get her close to Trump’s 43%.
Christie’s exit doesn’t appear as likely to affect Iowa’s caucuses, which are due to take place Monday. He’s running fifth in that state with only 3% support, according to RCP’s average of Iowa surveys, behind Trump at 52%, Haley at 17%, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 16% and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy at 7%.
The former New Jersey governor appeared to indicate he wasn’t upbeat on Haley’s prospects as he seemed to inadvertently get caught on a hot mic before his announcement. Christie appeared to say Haley’s “gonna get smoked” and she is “not up to this,” while also saying DeSantis is “petrified.” DeSantis later posted on social media that he agreed with Christie that Haley will get smoked.
DeSantis and Haley are slated to debate in Iowa at 9 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday. Christie didn’t qualify for the debate. Trump did make the cut but is skipping it and holding his own town-hall event.
Now read: Iowa GOP caucuses: Haley now 2nd in most recent polls, while Trump has a key support level to hit
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