All posts tagged: Chris Christie

How Did We End Up With Trump Again?

How Did We End Up With Trump Again?

Published by skeptic

Not too long ago, Donald Trump looked finished. After the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the repeal of Roe v. Wade, and a poor Republican showing in the 2022 midterms, the GOP seemed eager to move on from the former president. The post-Trump era had supposedly begun. Just one week after the midterms, he entered the 2024 race, announcing his candidacy to a room of bored-looking hangers-on. Even his children weren’t there. Security had to pen people in to keep them from leaving during his meandering speech. Today, thanks to Trump’s dominant performance in South Carolina, the Republican primary is all but over. Trump’s margin was so comfortable that the Associated Press called the race as soon as polls closed. How did we get here? How did Trump go from historically weak to unassailable? I talk with Republican-primary voters in focus groups every week, and through these conversations, I’ve learned that the answer has as much to do with Trump’s party and his would-be competitors as it does with Trump himself. Most Republican leaders …

How Trump Endorsements Became Banal

How Trump Endorsements Became Banal

Published by skeptic

Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, officially endorsed Donald Trump’s campaign for reelection two Saturdays ago. The news landed as an afterthought, which is probably how she intended it. “Today at the @WVGOP Winter Meeting Lunch, I announced my support for President Donald Trump,” Capito wrote on X, as if she were making a dutiful entry in a diary. Republicans have reached the point in their primary season, even earlier than expected, when the party’s putative leaders line up to reaffirm their allegiance to Trump. Several of Capito’s Senate colleagues joined the validation brigade around the same time: the GOP’s second- and third-ranking members, John Cornyn of Texas and John Barrasso of Wyoming, along with Trump’s long-ago rivals Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida. None of their endorsements caused much of a ripple. Perhaps some mischief-maker surfaced the old video of Cruz calling Trump “a sniveling coward” in 2016 or Rubio calling him “the most vulgar person ever to aspire to the presidency.” But for the most part, the numbing …

What to expect in the New Hampshire primaries | AP Decision Notes

What to expect in the New Hampshire primaries | AP Decision Notes

Published by skeptic

WASHINGTON (AP) — The race for the Republican and Democratic presidential nominations will converge in New Hampshire on Tuesday in the first primary election of the season — though on the Democratic side, the contest may count only for bragging rights. The Republican primary will test former President Donald Trump’s front-runner status in a state he carried by a comfortable margin in the 2016 primary but has a considerably more moderate electorate than the one that delivered him a big win in the Iowa caucuses. It will also be a test for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who wants to establish herself as the main alternative to Trump. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who edged Haley for second place in Iowa, is now focusing his efforts on South Carolina, after two scheduled New Hampshire debates were canceled. Trump has had a consistent lead in the polls, with Haley, a former South Carolina governor, appearing to be in the strongest position among his rivals. In the Democratic primary, President Joe Bidenwon’t appear on the ballot, since the …

The GOP’s Big Chill in Iowa

The GOP’s Big Chill in Iowa

Published by skeptic

The arctic chill that upended the final weekend of the Iowa Republican caucus provided a fitting end to a contest that has seemed frozen in place for months. This caucus has felt unusually lifeless, not only because former President Donald Trump has maintained an imposing and seemingly unshakable lead in the polls. That advantage was confirmed late Saturday night when the Des Moines Register, NBC, and Mediacom Iowa released their highly anticipated final pre-caucus poll showing Trump at 48 percent and, in a distant battle for second place, Nikki Haley at 20 percent and Ron DeSantis at 16 percent. The caucus has also lacked energy because Trump’s shrinking field of rivals has never appeared to have the heart for making an all-out case against him. “I think there was actually a decent electorate that had supported Trump in the past but were interested in looking for somebody else,” Douglas Gross, a longtime GOP activist who chaired Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign in Iowa, told me. But neither DeSantis nor Haley, he adds, has found a message …

Who benefits as Christie ends presidential bid before Iowa caucus? – podcast | Politics

Who benefits as Christie ends presidential bid before Iowa caucus? – podcast | Politics

Published by skeptic

Hours before Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis took to the debate stage in Iowa on Wednesday night, more than 1,000 miles away in New Hampshire Chris Christie shocked his supporters by announcing he was dropping out of the race. The former New Jersey governor was the only candidate to consistently attack Donald Trump, in a field of Republicans trying to beat the former president, all the while keeping his base sweet. With only three days until the Iowa caucus, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Elaine Kamarck about who is most likely to come out on top How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know Source link

Chris Christie, on a Hot Mic, Says There’s No Way in Hell Nikki Haley Beats Donald Trump

Chris Christie, on a Hot Mic, Says There’s No Way in Hell Nikki Haley Beats Donald Trump

Published by skeptic

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination on Wednesday, a move that will likely improve Nikki Haley’s chances in the New Hampshire primary. But according to Christie, it won’t matter, because Haley has no shot of beating Donald Trump. Caught on a hot mic during his campaign’s livestream shortly before he announced his decision to bow out, Christie was heard telling someone, “She’s going to get smoked, and you and I both know it,” seemingly referring to the former governor of South Carolina. “She’s not up to this.” He added, “She spent $68 million, just on TV, spent $68 million so far…$59 million by DeSantis, and we spent 12. I mean, who’s punching above their weight and who’s getting a return on their investment?” Christie also claimed, “DeSantis called me, petrified.” The livestream was taken down shortly after that. In announcing his decision to drop out of the race, Christie told a crowd in New Hampshire, “I promise you this: I am going to make sure …

Chris Christie Drops Out Of 2024 Republican Presidential Race

Chris Christie Drops Out Of 2024 Republican Presidential Race

Published by skeptic

Chris Christie suspended his 2024 presidential campaign on Wednesday night in yet another sign that Republican resistance to front-runner Donald Trump is melting away as the former president barrels toward his party’s nomination for a second term in the White House. “It’s clear to me tonight that there isn’t a path for me to win the nomination,” he told supporters at a campaign event in New Hampshire, dropping out before voting starts in the Iowa caucuses next week. “I am going to make sure that in no way do I enable Donald Trump to ever be president of the U.S. again, and that is more important than my own personal ambition,” he added. The former New Jersey governor had been a long-shot candidate in the Republican primary, struggling to break above single digits in polls of the contest while attempting to undermine Trump’s stronghold on the party. He faced pressure to end his campaign and endorse former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley in a bid to boost her chances of winning the January 23 primary …

The Last Remaining GOP Holdouts Are Surrendering to Trump

The Last Remaining GOP Holdouts Are Surrendering to Trump

Published by skeptic

The last Republican holdouts who once were skeptical of Trump are now endorsing him. Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota (Win McNamee / Getty) January 5, 2024, 6:27 AM ET Nearly a decade into the Donald Trump phenomenon, Republicans are still finding new ways to abase themselves. Consider Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 Republican in the House. If the name is familiar, that could be because for a fleeting moment in October, it looked like Emmer might become the next speaker. Kevin McCarthy had been unceremoniously tossed from the role, in a charge led by Trump allies. Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan had both fallen short. Emmer emerged as a potential compromise solution for a tired caucus. Then Trump took to the phones, calling members to whip them against the majority whip, whom he viewed as insufficiently loyal. Among the complaints: Emmer had voted to certify the 2020 election of Joe Biden, and he had not yet endorsed Trump’s 2024 race. Emmer quickly realized he couldn’t win and decided to drop out. “He’s done. It’s …

Chris Christie Says His 2016 Trump Endorsement Was A ‘Mistake’

Chris Christie Says His 2016 Trump Endorsement Was A ‘Mistake’

Published by skeptic

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (Republican) admitted in a new presidential campaign ad that endorsing former US President Donald Trump in 2016 was a mistake on his part. “I have an admission to make. Eight years ago when I decided to endorse Donald Trump for president, I did it because he was winning, and I did it because I thought I could make him a better candidate and a better president,” Christie said in the 66-second ad released on Thursday. “Well, I was wrong, I made a mistake.” After he dropped out of the 2016 presidential race, Christie supported Trump and briefly led his presidential transition team. Last year, Christie was asked about his judgment in regard to endorsing Trump in an interview with Vanity Fair. “I’m not perfect. I can be wrong sometimes. I think everybody can,” he said. Unlike some of the other Republican presidential candidates, Christie has consistently criticised Trump both before and during his 2024 campaign. While Trump is facing a myriad of legal issues, including numerous criminal cases and …

Colorado Kicks Trump Off the Ballot

Colorado Kicks Trump Off the Ballot

Published by skeptic

“The experience of being disastrously wrong is salutary,” John Kenneth Galbraith wrote. “No economist should be denied it, and not many are.” I’m not an economist. But I was wrong about the litigation to bar Donald Trump from the ballot as an insurrectionist. I wrote in August that the project was a “fantasy.” Now, by a 4–3 vote, the Colorado Supreme Court has converted fantasy into at least temporary reality. The Fourteenth Amendment provides that anyone who swore an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and who then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same,” is forbidden to hold any federal or state office unless pardoned by a vote of two-thirds of both houses of Congress. I doubted that any contemporary court would apply this Civil War legacy to the politics of the 2020s. Colorado’s supreme court just did. Trump swore an oath to the United States when he entered the presidency in 2017. According to Colorado’s court, his actions leading up to the violent coup attempt of January 6, 2021, …