For the first time this election season, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will not appear on the main stage of a GOP presidential debate when the candidates gather in Milwaukee on Tuesday. But between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. on Monday, Christie could not be missed on the cable airwaves.
The governor appeared on Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, and CNBC hoping to offset his absence from the main stage and looking for the silver lining in his demotion to the undercard debate.
“I’ll be in Milwaukee tomorrow night and I’ll be on a stage where I’m going to get a lot more time to talk,” Christie told MSNBC. “Iowa and New Hampshire, as you know, all of you know, will be the folks who decide how this field gets winnowed, not anybody in an office building in Manhattan.”
Christie repeatedly reiterated the importance of New Hampshire to the primary process and has spent 46 days there already.
And New Hampshire has taken a liking to the New Jersey governor. Christie gained 6 percentage points in polling of the Granite State since the October presidential debate, rising to fifth place in a November WBUR survey.
The governor has also won praise from the publisher of New Hampshire’s flagship paper, who called the Fox News executives that have excluded Christie from the main debate “fatheads.” Joe McQuaid, the New Hampshire Union Leader’s publisher, has previously clashed with what he perceived as the cable television network’s encroachment on the presidential primary process.
“Christie seems to be catching fire just as Fox and friends are trying to douse him and others and dictate a Republican nominee,” McQuaid wrote on Monday. “That may backfire here in New Hampshire.”
Christie jumped to fifth in the Washington Examiner‘s most recent GOP presidential power rankings.
