Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie on Sunday sought to play down the potential consequences if rival Donald Trump loses the 2024 primary race but refuses to concede — or even keeps running as a third-party candidate.
“No one will expect him to concede. He hasn’t conceded the 2020 election. Who cares,” Christie, a former governor of New Jersey and a Trump supporter-turned-critic, told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
While Trump maintains a huge lead in national polling of Republican primary voters, he is in a slightly weaker front-runner position according to surveys in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to vote, where Christie and other challengers are hoping for an upset.
Pressed by Karl on how Trump’s continued presence in the race could be an ongoing problem if he loses — like if he contests the results or runs third-party — Christie dismissed that notion, arguing that at that point, “the public en masse will begin to ignore” the former president because of his repeated defeats at the ballot box.
“I think he’ll go back to Mar-a-Lago. He’ll continue to carp and moan and complain and say we don’t deserve him,” Christie said. “Anything that gets him out of this race and keeps him out of the White House is fine by me.”
Christe’s reaction comes as ABC News has learned Americans for Prosperity Action — an advocacy organization backed by Republican billionaire Charles Koch and his allies — has plans to endorse an alternative candidate to Trump with the Jan. 15 Iowa caucus now just 50 days away.
With an estimated $70 million on hand to pour into the effort to defeat the former president, Americans for Prosperity also has research that suggests “as many as 75% of Republicans just might be open to a Trump alternative if they think that that person can win,” ABC News Political Director Rick Klein told Karl on Sunday.
Trump has so far commanded the Republican field, but Klein said his comparatively weaker early state polling could give other candidates hope that “once people start to engage,” there’s a chance of eating into his lead.
Christie has to say this because if he told the truth it would show that his campaign is not about winning anything unless Trump keels over on the golf course before the election. And even then I’m pretty sure that Trump’s cult would not vote for him instead.
No, the truth, as Christie well knows, is that if Trump somehow loses the primary (very unlikely) he will take his cult and go home. He’ll say it was stolen and at least 20% of the Republican party won’t vote. That’s the reality they are all facing.