Alan Zendell, January 9, 2024

My lack of confidence in the presidential polls that show Trump with a commanding lead in the Republican primary race is well documented. Everyone I know who is qualified to discuss sampling universes agrees – it doesn’t seem possible, the way polls are conducted by emails and mobile phone calls, that the people polled are representative of the voting population. Still, a trend is a trend, and the one reported today in New Hampshire could have huge implications.

The result in the latest primary poll in that state are: Trump – 39%, Haley – 32%, Christie – 12%, Ramaswamy – 8%, DeSantis – 5% and Hutchinson <1%. Whenever there is a sharp change in poll results, we have to be careful to wait for more data before we jump to conclusions. The change might have been an aberration, or it might have been the first part of a growing trend that is still ongoing. Since November, Haley’s support grew by 12%, which is actually a 60% increase over her previous level of 20%. That would be remarkable in any campaign, but in this one, it shows what credible, centrist Republicans like NH Governor Chris Sununu can accomplish when they unite behind a candidate. It certainly suggests that Trump’s invincibility is overrated.

It’s also an opportunity, perhaps his last, for Chris Christie to win back some respect. I expect that his 12% showing has more to do with the fact that he’s the only candidate to take Trump on head-to-head than how much voters believe in him. Christie has credibility issues going back to his support for Trump in 2016. His recent mea culpa TV ad, in which he admits that supporting trouble was a mistake might have helped if he’d released it six months ago. Today, it looks like a desperate Hail Mary, and even at that, it fails to address the months that Christie worshipped at Trump’s feet hoping for a Cabinet position. Even worse, for the Republicans, should Christie pull off the miracle of the millennium, and win the nomination from Trump, he has about as much chance of beating Joe Biden as I do, and you couldn’t pay me enough to accept the job.

The MAGA crowd hates Christie, for his current attacks on Trump and for putting Charles Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner’s father, in prison. No one is more vindictive than Donald Trump. If Christie had the Republican nomination, Trump would run as a write-in or third party candidate. He’d do whatever he could to torpedo him out of spite, and the winner would be Biden. In short, Christie’s candidacy is doomed whether he wins the nomination or not, but one classy move when it really matters could change everything for him.

If Christie had any integrity, any motive beyond satisfying his own lust for power, he would make a deal with Nikki Haley, today. Right now, without wasting a minute. He would drop out of the race tomorrow and urge everyone who supported him to vote for her. The proverb about the enemy of your enemy being your friend couldn’t be more applicable than in fighting to defeat Trump. Trump is the enemy of everyone who believes in our Constitution and our flawed, fragile democracy, which makes the former SC Governor their friend.

If Christie spends the next few months stumping for Haley in the primary race and nominates her at the Republican convention, he’ll earn forgiveness for his past wrongs, or to put it in terms he and Trump understand, we might grant him amnesty for all his past behavior. He might even wind up as Haley’s running mate which would say a lot about his ability to suppress his ego for the common good. For most of his political life, Christie has behaved like a bully, and hasn’t always practiced what he preached. Remember when some journalists caught him sunbathing with his wife on a New Jersey beach while he was enforcing the COVID lockdown for everyone else in his state?

If Chris Christie believes anything he says on the campaign trail, if he means it when he calls Trump dangerous and the enemy of democracy, this is the way to show it. If getting in line behind Haley is the action that derails Trump’s run for the presidency, we might build a monument to him. So what’s it going to be, Chris? Do you care more about this country than your own ego? Are you willing to take second place to a woman? Stranger things have happened in politics.

In this very surreal primary season, when it seems as though the country is on a precipice, maybe we need a miracle. It might as well be Christie, who said last week that Trump needs to be defeated by voters, not justices. This is best chance.