Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is in the 2024 presidential race to stay. Just ask him.
In a new ad released digitally on Thursday, the 61-year-old directly responded to recent calls for him to withdraw and clear the field for a more popular alternative to former President Donald Trump.
“Some people say I should drop out of this race. Really? I’m the only one saying Donald Trump is a liar,” Christie said, looking directly at the camera.
The White House hopeful — who has focused his long shot campaign on New Hampshire — will go on air Friday in the first-in-the-nation-primary state as part of a seven-figure ad buy across broadcast and digital platforms.
Christie has made directly attacking Trump a key feature of his campaign, accusing rivals Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy of being too afraid to call out the former president.
The Garden Stater is currently polling third in New Hampshire at 10.5%, according to the RealClearPolitics average, and has until the Jan. 23 primary to make up ground against Trump (46.3%) and Haley (24.8%).
Nationally, Christie is polling at 3.3% on average, with Trump in first place by a wide margin (62.5%) and a tight battle for second between DeSantis (11.3%) and Haley (11%).
Later in the ad, Christie — who endorsed Trump in 2016 — said the former president “pits Americans against each other,” and would “burn America to the ground to help himself.”
“Every Republican leader says that in private. I’m the only one saying it in public. What kind of president do we want? A liar or someone who has the guts to tell the truth? New Hampshire. It’s up to you,” Christie concluded.
The campaign said it would release another ad Friday entitled “The Choice,” which will detail Christie’s “vision for a better America with a call for unity,” spokesperson Karl Rickett said in a statement.
Rickett also launched an attack against Haley in a separate release, pointing to a tweet contrasting the Christie ad with the former South Carolina governor failing to mention slavery as a main cause of the Civil War.
Haley was asked by a New Hampshire voter about the topic at a town hall in Berlin Wednesday night, to which she responded: “I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do.”
“I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are,” Haley added. “And I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people.”
The voter then remarked they were “astonished” that Haley didn’t mention slavery as a cause of the conflict.
“What do you want me to say about slavery?” Haley shot back. “Next question.”