Now the race to be the alternative to Trump boils down to Haley and DeSantis.
WSJ Editorial Board
Chris Christie has run for months as the self-described truth-teller in the 2024 presidential race, and on Wednesday he admitted a hard truth to himself: He has no realistic path to win the GOP nomination for the White House. He made the honorable decision to drop out even before any votes have been cast.
“It’s clear to me tonight that there isn’t a path for me to win the nomination,” he said in remarks in New Hampshire. “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.”
He’s referring to the fact that Mr. Trump will benefit if the non-Trump GOP vote fractures in support of multiple candidates. That’s what was likely to happen if Mr. Christie stayed in the race through the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23, which follows a week after Monday’s Iowa caucuses. Mr. Christie wasn’t competing in Iowa and bet everything on the Granite State’s famously independent voters.
But after months of campaigning he was only at 10% or so in primary polls in the state, and badly trailing both Mr. Trump and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. A CNN poll this week has Mr. Trump at 39%, Ms. Haley at 32%, and Mr. Christie at 12%. Do the math.
Mr. Christie didn’t endorse Ms. Haley, and he even took a gratuitous shot at her in a comment caught on a microphone when he was speaking privately. She’ll be “smoked,” he said, before the streaming remarks were taken down. That’s Mr. Christie’s famous tough-guy routine, but in any case most of his voters are likely to go to Ms. Haley as they are looking for someone other than Mr. Trump.
Mr. Christie’s most important contribution to the campaign has been to tell Republicans an often unwelcome truth, which is that they would be making a grave mistake to nominate Donald Trump for a second term. A former federal prosecutor, Mr. Christie has been unsparing about Mr. Trump’s awful efforts to undo his 2020 election loss, as well as the political risk if the GOP signs up for another wild ride.
But the polling has made clear that GOP voters, whatever they think of Mr. Trump, weren’t rewarding Mr. Christie as the deliverer of that message. That meant the best contribution Mr. Christie could make to stopping Mr. Trump was to drop out himself. Give him credit for following through, putting his argument about what’s best for the country above the desire that every political competitor feels to run through the finish line.
Mr. Trump is the favorite to win Monday’s vote in Iowa, but it will matter how big his margin is and who finishes second and by how much. If either Ron DeSantis or Ms. Haley can emerge from Iowa with momentum going into New Hampshire, it’s possible one of them could give Mr. Trump a contest. Ms. Haley is far outpacing Mr. DeSantis in New Hampshire, and she is the former Governor of the next big state with a primary contest, South Carolina.
Republicans deserve a real nomination fight, not merely the coronation of a former President who couldn’t win re-election. Mr. Christie’s departure has helped that prospect.
