What comes to mind when you think of Chris Christie?
Chances are, “presidential front-runner” probably was not among your initial thoughts.
Though Christie’s name today evokes notions of sloppiness and campaigning ineptitude, he was at one point the favorite man to represent Republicans in the 2016 presidential election. Turns out, being the golden boy three years before a primary seldom guarantees an actual nomination.
Finding themselves in 2021, three years out from the next presidential contest, conservative pundits seem hell-bent on turning myriad candidates into the next Christie. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is an effective consensus candidate, sure, and Nikki Haley is making big moves in the background, great, but a lot can happen between now and the 2024 Iowa primary.
To understand this, let’s take a step back and examine how Christie blew a lead before even beginning his campaign.
In 2013, high-level officials appointed by Christie intentionally created traffic jams on the George Washington Bridge between Fort Lee, New Jersey, and the New York City borough of Manhattan, substantially lengthening commutes and impairing the response time of emergency services. Said officials later admitted that they intended to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee for having refused to endorse Christie during his gubernatorial campaign. The scandal, dubbed “BridgeGate” by the press, was cited by many as the reason for Christie’s steep decline in national popularity.
Christie wasn’t necessarily implicated in the scandal, however, it conflicted with his anti-corruption appeal and tanked his presidential prospects nonetheless.
One controversy is all it really takes to derail a presidential hopeful, and there will be ample time for those in the coming years. Look at DeSantis, for instance. A big part of his perceived viability comes from his potential to appeal both to Donald Trump’s fervent base as well as more traditional Republicans. All that goes out the window if he and Trump ever have a public feud. While that may sound purely speculative, there is a possible spat brewing. Trump could drive a wedge between the two if he continues to insist on a rally in Sarasota despite DeSantis’s pleas for him to postpone due to the recent catastrophic condo collapse in Surfside. If Trump, for whatever reason, feels that DeSantis has slighted him, there is no reason to believe that the former president wouldn’t lash out at the governor.
Without the support of Trump and his followers, DeSantis won’t go very far. Staking one’s political future on maintaining the favor of someone as characteristically erratic as Trump is a dangerous path, to say the least.
Party support doesn’t mean anything at this point, either. Recall that Jeb “please clap” Bush was the establishment favorite going into 2016, garnering an impressive slate of endorsements and levying a massive war chest from prominent donors to fuel his campaign.
Bush ended that primary run publicly humiliated and with a meager four delegates to show for it.
Trump’s waning popularity among elected Republicans and conservative thought leaders isn’t much of an issue for him as these groups have had diminished sway over the electorate in recent cycles. A resurgence from the former president, though unlikely, is far from impossible.
Nobody knows what the country will look like in three years. Nobody knows what the issues of the day will be or who will be best suited to take them on. Nobody knows what scandals will unfold or how dynamics between primary candidates will shape public opinion. Nobody knows who the presumptive nominee is for 2024, it’s time to stop pretending as if we do.
