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RYE, N.H – Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu says he will not be calling on his pal Chris Christie to drop out of the GOP presidential nomination race.
However, Sununu tells Fox News that Christie’s “numbers are falling” and argues that the former New Jersey governor has “hit his limit” as he runs a second time for the White House.
Additionally, he emphasised that Christie “has the chance to be the hero. To put Nikki [Haley] over the top. To deliver [former President Donald] Trump that loss, Nikki that win that the rest of the country’s looking for.”
Sununu, a well-liked Republican governor in the state that holds the first main in the GOP presidential nominating calendar, endorsed Haley final month, delivering a blow to Christie, who’s as soon as once more putting all his chips on a powerful end in New Hampshire.
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Republican Gov. Chris Sununu endorses former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, at a marketing campaign occasion in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Dec. 12, 2023. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
Haley has surged in the polls in New Hampshire over the previous month and is at present in second place, forward of Christie. She has narrowed the hole with Trump, who stays the commanding front-runner for the GOP nomination as he makes his third straight White House run.
Christie and Sununu have lengthy been pals, and are two of the most vocal Republican critics of Trump. However, on the marketing campaign path and in interviews since endorsing Haley, Sununu has argued that Christie doesn’t have a path to profitable the nomination.
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“I know he’s disappointed that I didn’t get behind him, but at the end of the day, this is the path. Chris has kind of hit his limit … at around 13% of the vote. He speaks the truth on Trump, but that’s very different than whether it translates into votes for the nomination to become president of the United States,” Sununu advised Fox News Digital on Tuesday night time after introducing Haley at a city corridor on the New Hampshire coast.
He emphasised that Christie is “not going to surge 30% in the next three weeks. That ain’t happening. He hasn’t put a ground game in any other state, and you can’t just use New Hampshire as a launching ground to nothing else.”
Christie advised Fox News final month, after Sununu endorsed Haley, that “it’s not his [Sununu’s] job to tell anybody when to get out. He can support whomever he likes, but it’s not his job to tell anybody when it’s time to get out of the race. That’s an individual choice to make, and I’m not going anywhere, so let’s be really clear about that.”
When requested about these feedback on Tuesday, Sununu mentioned “I’m not telling Chris that he has to get out. Right. I’m not calling Chris Christie and saying ‘you absolutely have to get out.’”
“I think Chris is smart enough to see the writing on the wall. To know that he has a great opportunity here not just to get behind Nikki but to do something really important for the country and the party and start moving us forward. He has been, and I think has the opportunity to continue to be a very important voice in that,” Sununu added.
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Ahead of the Haley city corridor, the former South Carolina governor, who later served as ambassador to the United Nations throughout the Trump administration, mentioned in a Fox News Digital interview that Sununu “knows this state very well. He knows what Granite Staters want. They trust him. They have a relationship with him. And so, whatever he says, I think people believe.”
When requested about Christie, Haley mentioned “I think the reality is – you look at what Christie wanted. Christie didn’t want Trump to win. Our goal is to make sure that Trump doesn’t win and that we get our country strong and proud again and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Christie has repeatedly pushed again in opposition to recommendations that he ought to drop out of the race and again Haley in order to defeat Trump. He has emphasised that he is the solely Trump rival in the race who’s straight taking up the former president.
“Some people say I should drop out of this race. Really? I’m the only one saying Donald Trump is a liar,” Christie mentioned whereas talking on to the digital camera in an advert operating on TV and digital in New Hampshire, the place unbiased voters and moderates have lengthy performed an important position in the state’s famed main.
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On Tuesday, as Sununu as soon as once more teamed up with Haley in New Hampshire forward of the state’s Jan. 23 main, Christie charged in a CNN interview that “since Chris started to work for Nikki Haley and become an employee of Nikki Haley, it’s not the same Chris Sununu anymore.”
“Chris Sununu was one of the most vocal Donald Trump critics in this country,” Christie added. “This is a guy who has said that Donald Trump is unfit. All things that his candidate is unwilling to say.”
Chirstie accused Sununu of abandoning “his principles to try to get himself some political favor inside of his own state.”
Former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, speaks at a city corridor in Rye, New Hampshire, on Jan. 2, 2023. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
Sununu will proceed to marketing campaign with Haley at three occasions in New Hampshire on Wednesday.
He may also stump with Haley this weekend in Iowa, forward of the state’s Jan. 15 caucuses, which lead off the GOP presidential nominating calendar.
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