Chris Christie says Trump has not ‘cleared’ 2024 GOP primary field
Jack Birle
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Former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) cautioned those calling former President Donald Trump the likely 2024 nominee that he has not “cleared” the field of fellow GOP primary candidates.
Christie dismissed the idea Trump had already cleared the field despite some 2024 contenders, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, opting against challenging the former president. Trump is considered the frontrunner in the field, with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) close behind in several polls, but with other contenders far behind the two leaders.
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“I don’t think the field is starting to look like Trump. When you’re indicted in one place and you’re facing investigations in two others, it makes you at least an uncertain winner. But again, he’s the former president. So course he’s going to be the front runner. He has the best name ID of anybody in the race. But you already have four candidates who announced,” Christie said on ABC’s This Week on Sunday.
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“This is what I said a couple months ago on this show. This is not going to be a 2016 field. This is going to be six to eight candidates that are going to be running. It will be a normal type sized field. But certainly it won’t be a field that Donald Trump has cleared,” Christie added.
Christie also said that he believes the 2024 contenders who announced they would not run, likely did it for personal reasons rather than seeing the primary as Trump’s to lose.
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“You see Asa Hutchinson in the race and Nikki Haley in the race, now Tim Scott in the race. These are substantial people who are going to have something to say. And so I don’t think that’s what it means at all,” Christie said. “I do think each one of these decisions were made on rather personal levels. I think, in particular, Pompeo’s was a decision, that was just he didn’t want to do it. And boy you got to really want to do it to be able to get in.”
Christie, who ran for president in 2016, has teased that he may run again in 2024 but would not announce a decision on This Week when asked directly.