New York – Former governor of New Jersey Chris Christie withdraws from the US presidential race. “I would rather lose by telling you the truth,” he announced to his supporters in Windham, New Hampshire, “rather than lie in order to win.” “It has become clear to me – she added – that the conditions are not there to win the nomination, for this reason I am suspending my campaign tonight”.
After launching his candidacy in June, presenting himself as the only one capable of competing with Donald Trump having known him closely, the Republican Christie, 61 years old, born in Newark, New Jersey, half-Italian on his mother’s side, Sondra Grasso, never took off in the polls, ending up not qualifying, less than a week before the primaries, to the televised duel scheduled in Iowa, to which the former US ambassador to the UN instead gained access Nikki Haley and the governor of Florida Ron Desantis.
Christie’s exit, although irrelevant considering the numbers, removes from the Republican contest the candidate who more than any other, if not the only one, attacked Trump head-on, defining him from the beginning as “unsuitable” for the office of president of the United States. United States. That message ended up hampering his candidacy, because the Republican base turned its back on him.
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Christie, however, did not change his tune, he continued to hammer on the tycoon, without fearing side effects. “Just imagine for a moment,” she said in her last rally, “if Donald Trump had been behind the desk on September 11th.” “The first thing he would have done – he continued – would have been to run into the bunker to protect himself, he would have put himself safe first, before this country”. Nobody talked about the tycoon like he did. The other candidates used vague tones, bypassed the questions, and tried to divert the debate to other topics.
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Shortly before announcing his retirement, the former governor had caused some political shock when he was caught making judgments about his opponents, thinking, or perhaps not, that he didn’t have the microphone on. Of Haley he had said: “she will be destroyed and both you and I know it”. And then: “she’s not up to par”. From DeSantis: “He called me, he was petrified.” Trump immediately used Christie’s statements to attack the former ambassador: the tycoon defined the statements about Haley as “very truthful”.
In his last speech as a candidate, the former governor of New Jersey criticized his opponents for not having had the courage to attack Trump, but he received friendly statements from them. In addition to DeSantis’ phone call, Haley commented on the announcement without referring to the former governor’s off-air call: “Chris Christie – she said – has been a friend for many years, I recognize him for having carried out a tough campaign. Voters face a clear choice in this election: the chaos and drama of the past or a new generation of conservative leaders. I will fight to earn every vote, so that together we can build a stronger and prouder America.”