No one can win the 2024 Republican Party nomination for president without winning over millions of voters who like Donald Trump. For now, the polls say those voters are happy with Trump. This creates a dilemma for his rivals. All of them need someone to dent Trump’s popularity via direct attacks on the man and his candidacy. But no one wants to infuriate Trump supporters by leading those attacks, allowing other candidates to benefit. They all want someone else to lead the charge.
Cue Chris Christie, the former Trump rival-turned-ally-turned-caustic critic who will enter the race for the GOP nomination on Tuesday (former VP Mike Pence is set to launch his bid on Wednesday). The former New Jersey governor is currently polling at less than 1%, and he’s highly unlikely to win anything. But Christie has already gone where candidates like Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Nicki Haley, and others fear to tread by publicly referring to Trump as a coward, a loser, and a “puppet of Putin.” (He once blamed Trump for giving him COVID.)
It’s hard to say whether a Christie kamikaze candidacy might bring Trump’s high poll numbers back to Earth, but one thing is clear: Beginning Tuesday, the fight for the Republican presidential nomination is about to get louder.