By Chris Christie has lost two Republican presidential campaigns, but he apparently hasn’t lost the conviction that the party might eventually come around. The former New Jersey governor is considering another run in 2028, suggesting that a bad November for Republicans could create an opening for his anti-Trump pitch.
Speaking Tuesday at the Granite State Summit on Responsible Gaming in New Hampshire, Christie said he wants to see the midterm results before deciding whether to pursue the nomination again. His calculation rests on Republican voters reconsidering President Donald Trump’s influence over the party—the same argument that failed to carry Christie to the first votes of the 2024 nominating contest.
“I came up here in ’23 and in ’24 as, like, the skunk at the garden party,” Christie said. “I came up here and said Donald Trump is not good for our party and not good for our country. And it’s going to hurt our country both here and around the world if we send him back to the White House.”
Now, Christie is watching for losses that he believes might make Republicans more receptive to that message.
“For our party’s sake, if we do a lot of losing six weeks from today, I wonder whether we’re going to say, ‘Okay, we need to change this approach and change this kind of wing of the party from being the dominant wing and having a different discussion within our party, which could lead to a different conversation with the country,’” Christie stated.
Republicans do have reasons for concern. Conservative commentator Steve Deace has sounded an alarm in Iowa, citing a private polling briefing that he said showed even strongly Republican legislative districts becoming competitive. Those underlying numbers have not been released, and Iowa’s spectacular polling miss in 2024 offers a reminder that forecasts can fail badly. But political trouble for Republicans would not, by itself, establish an appetite for Christie.
Asked whether he was considering another campaign, Christie made little effort to conceal his interest. “Anybody who comes up here and has ever run for president and not won and told you they’re not looking at it again is lying,” he said. “Let me just promise you they are lying.”
The ambition, he explained, survives defeat. “Once you go through the thought process of convincing yourself that you can be president, and then the next step that you should be president, that doesn’t leave your brain,” said Christie.
His own political history illustrates the distance between that conviction and winning Republican votes. In 2016, Christie finished sixth in New Hampshire with 7.4 percent, dropped out and endorsed Trump. By his next campaign, he had disavowed that endorsement and made stopping Trump the central purpose of his candidacy.
That effort ended before the Iowa caucuses. Announcing his withdrawal at a town hall in Windham, New Hampshire, Christie acknowledged the problem plainly: “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.”
He nevertheless promised to keep working against the eventual Republican nominee. “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, and that’s more important than my own personal ambition,” he said.
Trump went on to win both the nomination and the presidency. Christie is now considering whether the party that rejected his warning might give him another hearing after November.
He would also enter a succession debate that has already developed around figures serving in Trump’s administration. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have drawn substantial attention as potential successors, with their competing prospects raising questions about who will inherit Trump’s coalition. Christie’s proposed opening depends instead on Republicans deciding to move away from it.
For now, Christie has announced no campaign, and he acknowledged that another attempt would require more than personal confidence. His wife, he said, expects an explanation of how this race would end differently.
“If I’m going to go back home to my wife and say, ‘I know you may not believe this, but third time is the charm,’ like, I better have a real theory,” Christie said. “And what she has said to me is, ‘Chris, I want to see the path.’”
That remains the unanswered question. A disappointing midterm election could trigger a Republican argument over strategy, leadership and Trump’s legacy. Christie still has to explain why the answer to that argument would be him and not, say, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who won his state by 20 percent more recently.
[READ MORE: Conservative In Iowa Is Begging For A Change]
