Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is once again floating a run for president, arguing that the Republican Party needs new leadership after Tuesday’s midterm drubbing.
In an interview with Politico, Christie, a frequent Trump critic who ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination in 2016 and 2024, declared that “the Trump era is over” and said the party and the country need to look forward to new leadership. He said he will decide on a 2028 campaign in the coming months.
Christie also took aim at Vice President JD Vance, widely seen as the early front-runner for the Republican nomination. He said the vice president has no credibility, arguing that Vance spent two years in the White House without saying a negative word until this past Wednesday.
That was a reference to Vance’s lengthy post on X blaming the Iran war for the GOP’s loss of both the House and Senate. The post put daylight between Vance and President Donald Trump, who has continued to defend the war.
Christie argued he is better prepared for a campaign than other prominent Republicans. He also knocked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose term is coming to an end, saying he is trying to stay politically relevant and making contradictory statements.
The comments build on remarks Christie made in September at the Granite State Summit on Responsible Gaming in New Hampshire, where he openly said he was considering a third run. He said at the time that anyone who has run for president, lost and claims they aren’t looking at it again is lying. He said the midterms could show whether GOP voters were ready to change the party’s approach, and that his wife told him she wants to see the path.
Christie, 64, has built his recent political brand on opposition to Trump. A onetime ally who quickly endorsed Trump after dropping out of the 2016 race, he centered his 2024 campaign on stopping Trump’s return to the White House. He ended that bid five days before the Iowa caucuses, conceding he no longer saw a route to the nomination, and did not endorse any candidate afterward.
He did not win a single state in either campaign. In 2016, he finished sixth in the New Hampshire primary with 7.4% of the vote.
Support for a third bid appears extremely limited. The RealClearPolitics polling average does not even list Christie as a potential candidate.
Christie, now a contributor at ABC News, had predicted that Republicans were headed for a monumental defeat in the midterms, a forecast that proved accurate when Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress on Tuesday.
The 2028 field is already taking shape in the wake of the GOP’s losses. Vance has faced criticism from both sides for his post-election comments, while DeSantis and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, have emerged as early winners as Republicans jockey for position. Christie has previously named Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp as likely front-runners for the nomination.
