Why is he doing this? I thought former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley would be the person who needed an intervention to avoid total political embarrassment, but it would appear she’s not alone. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who dropped out of the 2024 race, might be another individual who needs a good talking to about what he’ll be doing now that he has so much free time on his hands. One of them should not be running for president as an independent candidate.
Has everyone lost the plot here? Please name me an independent candidacy that successfully won the White House—there’s none. Ross Perot was the most successful candidate, and he still lost. He probably cost former President George H.W. Bush a second term in 1992, but perhaps that’s what Christie is planning—a kamikaze run to derail another Trump presidency.
Last summer, the New Jersey Republican, who did bring sanity to Trenton by taking a sledgehammer to the power of teachers’ unions in the state, called a third-party endeavor a “fool’s errand.” Now, he’s mulling it through No Labels, which has pledged to back an independent candidate for 2024. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) is also considering a White House run. The West Virginia conservative Democrat recently announced he would not seek re-election to the U.S. Senate.
Christie’s animosity toward the former president was demonstrated in the GOP debates. The former governor wants to end the Trump era in American politics. Republican voters did not see it that way, so here we are—and it wouldn’t shock me if torpedoing Trump is Christie’s primary objective. The problem is that Trump will maintain his iron grip on the base, and even Trump-skeptic Republicans might be more inclined to vote with their checkbooks as the economy remains in a dismal state.
I don’t see it. While far-fetched, replacing Biden on the ticket is a more plausible scenario than Christie or Manchin mounting a run for 1600 Penn.
