Former New Jersey Gov.Chris Christiesuspended his 2024 presidential campaign on Wednesday, just ahead of Monday’s Iowa caucus.
Christie, whoentered the race in June, told supportersat a New Hampshire town hallit was “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.”
Although Christie did not endorse another candidate, hetold supportershe was “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.”
The 61-year-old Republican was one of the few presidential contenders in his party to go afterDonald Trump, who currently leads in GOP polls. Once a close ally of the former president, Christie turned into a critic of Trump near the end of his term in the White House, particularly following theJan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announces his support for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016.Tom Pennington/Getty
Christie continued: “This is an angry, bitter man who now wants to be back as president because he wants to exact retribution on anyone who has disagreed with him, anyone who’s tried to hold him to account for his own conduct, and every one of these policies that he’s talking about are about pursuing a plan of retribution."
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Speaking to PEOPLE in a 2021 interview, Christie opened up about his time in the Trump White House and his frustration with the former president’s focus on election conspiracy theories.
“Someone needed to stand up and say, ‘Look, we need to get real and we need to start getting the job done because if we don’t, we won’t have a role in this country moving forward,'” Christie said.
He continued: “I don’t think people want to hear that any longer. I think people want a new day. There is a pathway to it. Hopefully the combination of those election results and the book coming out … will give people a lot of encouragement that there is a new path for the Republican Party.”
source: people.com
