In June, one of 49 trips to 33 states that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has taken as chairman of the Republican Governors Association brought him to a sandwich shop in Pittsburgh.
There, during one of four swings through Pennsylvania this year, Christie assured supporters of Republican Gov. Tom Corbett that his bid for re-election would be an RGA priority.
“That’s the way you define a top priority when you’re a leadership committee,” Christie said, according to a local news report. “[It’s] where you spend your time. … And it’s where you spend your money, and we’ll be spending plenty of money here in Pennsylvania.”
Indeed, the RGA has made Pennsylvania a focus of its energy in this midterm election cycle. But Christie’s priorities, by his own definition, have not always aligned with those of the RGA.
A review of Christie’s travel on behalf of the RGA shows that he has spent less time in some of the nine states deemed most competitive by the association than he has in states pivotal to winning a presidential primary.
Many people expected that Christie, who has said he is weighing a bid for president, would use the RGA platform to launch such a campaign. With one month until Election Day, that appears to be the case.
Christie will travel twice this month to Iowa, marking his third trip to the state this year. And he made trips last month to New Hampshire and South Carolina. All three of those states are among the first to vote, and are the most important in a presidential primary. None are gubernatorial battlegrounds.
In July, RGA Executive Director Phil Cox identified nine states as the most competitive for governors races: Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, Maine, Arkansas, Connecticut and Illinois.
Cox added that the RGA once thought South Carolina, Iowa and New Mexico could become competitive, but early spending by the association prevented that from happening.
The RGA’s resources have flowed to the nine races accordingly.
The group does not always make public its spending in governors races, such as the donations it makes to candidates, but the association does announce when it has released a new ad on behalf of a governor. That measure can serve as a useful proxy when examining the association’s targeted states.
A review of the ads released by the RGA thus far matches up with the list of states Cox named in July as targets.
The RGA has released 10 ads in Michigan, 10 in Arkansas, six in Wisconsin and six in Maine. The association also has released four ads each in Kansas and Ohio.
And, as Cox noted, the RGA did focus its ad firepower early on South Carolina, Iowa and New Mexico. But the association has not run an ad in any of those states since early summer.
Nor has Christie returned to New Mexico since his sole trip May 29. But favorable odds for Republicans haven’t deterred Christie from recently traveling to South Carolina and Iowa.
Christie visited the Palmetto State to campaign for Gov. Nikki Haley on Sept. 16. Meanwhile, he has two trips planned to Iowa this month to campaign for Gov. Terry Branstad, including one this week — even though Branstad’s Democratic opponent Jack Hatch’s campaign is in such dire straits that it no longer has television ads on the air.
During his first trip to Iowa, in July, Christie promised a Republican congressional candidate, Rod Blum, that he would campaign for him on a return trip. Such an offer is not in the job description of the RGA chairman, but certainly the sort of offer a would-be presidential contender would make to earn chits.
Christie will campaign for Blum during his trip to Iowa on Friday.
The governor has devoted considerable time to travels in other non-competitive states, too.
Some trips that make little sense from a political perspective are wise strategically: Christie has traveled on multiple occasions to California and New York, and once to Texas; all three are fundraising power centers.
Christie has been able to piggyback campaign-related trips in Florida and Illinois with lucrative fundraising events for the RGA.
Partly because of these trips, Christie has raised more money than any previous RGA chairman at this stage in the election cycle: more than $75 million through mid-September.
Other jaunts to non-competitive states on multiple occasions, however, are difficult to justify except by presidential ambitions.
New Hampshire, for example, is hardly a fundraising powerhouse — most statewide candidates raise the bulk of their money in neighboring Massachusetts. And its gubernatorial race might not be a lost cause, but it is by no means a battleground for the RGA: Republican Walt Havenstein has consistently trailed Gov. Maggie Hassan by a double-digit margin in polls.
But New Hampshire is a key state in the presidential primary process. Christie has visited three times — two more times than he has visited Kansas or Arkansas, both key battleground states.
The RGA reasons that Christie is most valuable on the campaign trail in Democratic-leaning states like New Hampshire, because he serves as an example of a Republican governor who won over Democratic voters by a wide margin.
“Gov. Christie’s strong leadership as chairman of the RGA and governor of New Jersey has been extremely positive for our candidates,” said RGA spokesman Jon Thompson. “He has been and continues to be in high demand on the trail, and GOP gubernatorial candidates routinely point to his successful record of results governing a blue state as a model they would emulate to get results in their own states.”
Yet Christie has traveled only twice to Michigan and once to Wisconsin — two Democratic-leaning states where Govs. Rick Snyder and Scott Walker, respectively, face steep climbs to re-election.
To decide where to travel, Christie and his RGA senior aides discuss the potential for earned media and weigh requests by candidates. Christie is not immensely discerning: When Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant invited Christie to visit, he gamely accepted, although both governors enjoy clear paths to re-election.
“Christie loves to say ‘yes,’” one Republican strategist explained.
But he loves to say “yes” to some states more than others — in particular, to those with a stake in the 2016 presidential election.
In July, standing with Branstad outside of MJ’s Restaurant in Marion, Iowa, Christie gushed that he would return to Iowa “as often as Gov. Branstad wants me to.”
