Jim Gilmore burns bridges with Chris Christie

Christie elicited the ire of Gilmore this week when he said Sen. Marco Rubio, a fellow candidate, has spent the same amount of time campaigning in New Hampshire as Gilmore, implying that neither have spent much time in the Granite State wooing voters.

In an interview Tuesday with the Union Leader, Christie said he thinks Rubio, “who has spent the same amount of time in New Hampshire as Jim Gilmore, should tell the people of New Hampshire that he’s really not serious about wanting to get your vote and your support.”

He added, “if Marco Rubio thinks that spending the same amount of time as Jim Gilmore in New Hampshire is going to enamor him with New Hampshire voters, I think he’s wrong.”

Gilmore, a former governor of Virginia between 1998 and 2002, hit back by saying he’s conducted a sizable number of events in the early primary state.

“Governor Christie seems to have the same difficulty with the math of my visits to New Hampshire as he’s had with New Jersey’s budget over the last 7 years,” Gilmore said in a statement. “He hasn’t been able to add it up either.”

Gilmore then threw in a jab about the 2013 “Bridgegate” scandal that roiled Christie’s administration in which the governor was accused of being complicit in a scheme with Port Authority officials to punish a local politician for not endorsing his gubernatorial campaign by creating a major traffic jam along the George Washington Bridge.

“I’ve done 86 events in New Hampshire and balanced Virginia’s budget every year I was Governor and I did it without using gimmicks. I didn’t have a piggybank like the Port Authority to raid.”

Christie stands in sixth place with 3.9 percent of voters’ support in RealClearPolitics’ average of national polls for Republican presidential candidates. In New Hampshire, Christie fares better with 11.3 percent and a fourth place standing. Gilmore, who resides in last place in the Washington Examiner’s latest power rankings, doesn’t factor in either average.