{"id":12390,"date":"2023-12-02T13:46:41","date_gmt":"2023-12-02T13:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/02\/2024-showdown-christie-ups-his-game-in-key-primary-state-and-turns-up-the-heat-on-haley\/"},"modified":"2023-12-02T13:46:41","modified_gmt":"2023-12-02T13:46:41","slug":"2024-showdown-christie-ups-his-game-in-key-primary-state-and-turns-up-the-heat-on-haley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/02\/2024-showdown-christie-ups-his-game-in-key-primary-state-and-turns-up-the-heat-on-haley\/","title":{"rendered":"2024 showdown: Christie ups his game in key primary state and turns up the heat on Haley"},"content":{"rendered":"

CONCORD, N.H. \u2013 <\/span>With the start of the Republican presidential nominating calendar just a month and a half away, Chris Christie is picking up the pace.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As he sharpens his jabs at his 2024 White House rivals and vows he will qualify for next week\u2019s fourth GOP presidential primary debate, the former two-term New Jersey governor making his second White House run is upping his sales pitch to voters.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ve enjoyed the dating period. Now it\u2019s time for us to get married,\u2019 Christie told the crowd Friday at Politics and Pies, hosted by the GOP committee in Concord, New Hampshire. It was a line he had used at a town hall the previous night.<\/p>\n

Asked in an interview with Fox News Digital if he was getting marriage proposals from voters in the state that holds the first primary and second overall contest in the GOP nominating calendar, Christie said, \u2018I got a bunch last night after the town hall meeting.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018The biggest difference between now and eight years ago is people that are coming to town halls are committing,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

As Christie runs a second time for national office, he faces a steep uphill climb against former President Donald Trump, who\u2019s the commanding frontrunner in the race as he makes his third straight White House bid. And he\u2019s once again concentrating his time and resources in New Hampshire.<\/p>\n

Christie has shifted his lean campaign into a higher gear, increasing the number of events he\u2019s hosting with Granite State voters. This week\u2019s quick swing included two town halls, including one organized by the New Hampshire State Employees Association. The union said Christie was the first GOP candidate to meet with the membership in three decades. Christie returns to New Hampshire next week for a two-day tour of college campuses.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Christie unveiled what his campaign touted was a \u2018strong\u2019 and \u2018influential\u2019 New Hampshire steering committee, which included former state GOP chair Wayne McDonald, former Rep. Charlie Bass, and two former Republican state Senate presidents.<\/p>\n

Christie told Fox News he\u2019s stepping up his game \u2018because people here are starting to focus too in a way that was much different than, let\u2019s say, the last four or five months. You can tell by the attendance at the town halls. You can tell by the kind of questions that you get. And you can tell by the way that they\u2019re reacting. They\u2019re getting ready to make their decisions too, and so, you gotta be up here and make sure that you\u2019re making the case.\u2019<\/p>\n

The former governor, a one-time Trump ally turned vocal Republican critical of the former president, has been turning up the heat in recent weeks on two other rivals for the nomination.<\/p>\n

Christie\u2019s amplifying criticism of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for not vigorously targeting Trump. DeSantis and Haley are battling for a distant second place behind Trump in Iowa, the state whose Jan. 15 caucuses kick off the GOP nominating calendar. In New Hampshire, Christie\u2019s in third place, behind Trump and Haley.<\/p>\n

With Christie and Haley both aiming to win the votes of Republicans and independents who seek a Trump alternative, Christie\u2019s been targeting his rival.<\/p>\n

\u2018My point that I\u2019ve been trying to make about Nikki is just pretty simple. You can\u2019t be running against Donald Trump and then say he was the right president for the right time,\u2019 Christie told Fox News. \u2018You can\u2019t be trying to cuddle up to Trump at the same time you\u2019re running against him.\u2019<\/p>\n

Christie emphasized that Trump\u2019s \u2018well ahead. So, let\u2019s stop pretending that he\u2019s not, and let\u2019s go after him because there\u2019s a big case made against him.\u2019<\/p>\n

Haley, who\u2019s been sharpening her jabs at Trump on the campaign trail and who\u2019s made the case that she\u2019s more electable than Trump in next year\u2019s general election, has seen her standing in the race rise this autumn. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, she landed the backing of Americans for Prosperity Action, the political wing of the influential and deep-pocketed fiscally conservative network founded by the billionaire Koch Brothers. The group pledged to spend tens of millions of dollars and mobilize its formidable grassroots operation to help push the Republican Party past Trump and support Haley.<\/p>\n

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Christie made the stage at the first three Republican presidential primary debates and pushed back at speculation he\u2019ll fail to reach the higher qualifying thresholds for next week\u2019s fourth debate.<\/p>\n

In August, ahead of the first debate, Christie said Republican presidential candidates who didn\u2019t qualify for the showdown should drop out of the race.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Asked on Friday if his blunt suggestion would come back to haunt him, Christie quickly answered, \u2018I\u2019ll be on the debate stage next week, so we won\u2019t have to worry about it.\u2019<\/p>\n

And he reiterated that he\u2019s 100% confident he\u2019ll qualify.<\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CONCORD, N.H. \u2013 With the start of the Republican presidential nominating calendar just a month and a half away, Chris Christie is picking up the pace.\u00a0 As he sharpens his jabs at his 2024 White House rivals and vows he will qualify for next week\u2019s fourth GOP presidential primary debate, the former two-term New Jersey <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}