Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is not ruling out a third run for president.
The 64-year-old two-time Republican presidential candidate spoke about the idea of a 2028 presidential run in an interview at the Granite State Summit on Responsible Gaming in New Hampshire on Tuesday. He argued that if Republicans perform poorly in the midterm elections, it may mean the GOP needs a new direction.
“Am I looking at it? Look, anybody who comes up here, and has ever run for president and not won, and told you they’re not looking at it again, is lying,” Christie said. “Let me just promise you they are lying. Because once you go through the thought process of convincing yourself that you can be president, and then the next step, that you should be president, that doesn’t leave your brain.”
Christie compared himself to the “skunk at the garden party” in 2023 and 2024 when he advocated against the GOP nominating President Donald Trump for a second term as president. The former New Jersey governor challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in both 2016 and 2024.
“For our party’s sake, if we do a lot of losing six weeks from today, I wonder whether we’re going to say, ‘OK, we need to change this approach,’” Christie said, questioning whether Republicans will be reckoning with the Trump-style agenda after the midterm elections.
Christie ran on a fiscally conservative, interventionist national security platform that bucked Trump as unfit for the job during each of his campaigns.
Christie dropped out of the 2016 Republican presidential primary after he finished sixth place in the New Hampshire primary and dropped out of the 2024 primary before any contests took place.
Despite his two past losses, Christie confirmed, in a video posted by WMUR, that he has spoken with his wife about a third presidential run.
“The way I look at this is, if I’m going to go back home to my wife and say, ‘I know you may not believe this, but third time is the charm,’” Christie said. “Like, I better have a real theory, and what she has said to me is, ‘Chris, I want to see the path.’”
However, Christie may not be the only politician to fall to Trump who is eyeing 2028. Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump in 2024, is also mulling a run in 2028.