DES MOINES, Iowa — Hints of the old Chris Christie, the charismatic, buck-stops-here leader that once excited Republican voters of all ideological stripes, was evident during a weekend swing through this crucial primary state.
About 200 packed a sports bar like sardines to see New Jersey’s governor midday Friday in Council Bluffs, in western Iowa; he received a rousing reception from the more than 1,500 who saw him and three other contenders later that day in Orange City, a small community in the decidedly conservative, northwest corner of the state; and he had an audience of 2,000-plus engaged on Saturday during a candidate cattle call in Des Moines.
Republicans came from all over to glimpse the Republican who rocketed to conservative stardom in 2010 after YouTube videos of his town hall meetings, in which he aggressively challenged the New Jersey teachers union, went viral. Probably a quarter of the crowd in Council Bluffs journeyed from across the river in Nebraska to see him. At least one GOP voter who saw him in Des Moines drove 200 miles north from Shawnee, Kan.
“I had an opportunity to come up and see Chris Christie and I thought, yeah, alright,” said Andy Bonser, 54, who saw the governor on Saturday at the Iowa State Fairgrounds during a candidate forum sponsored by the state GOP.
This is the Christie that was supposed to be a front-runner for the 2016 nomination — the gifted communicator and quasi-celebrity who could motivate someone to drive hundreds of miles just to meet him.
That was before conservative activists got angry at him for being too chummy with President Obama — one week before the 2012 elections — in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy laying waste to the Jersey shore. It was before his image was tarnished by some of his underlings engineering the closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge to retaliate against a mayor that wouldn’t endorse his 2013 landslide re-election.
Christie likes to say that voters don’t care about this — that’s it’s an obsession of the liberal media, even though the combination of events helped sink his prospects. He’s running tenth in the RealClearPolitics.com average of national polls of GOP voters, with 1.8 percent support; eighth in New Hampshire, where he’s been spending most of his time, with 3.8 percent; and twelfth in Iowa, with 1.2 percent. These numbers are despite strong performances in the first three televised debates.
But Christie is a politician of preternatural talent. He has the retail skills to connect with skeptical voters and convince them to give him a second look, and the aggressive, truth-telling attitude for which many Midwestern Republicans claim they’re hungry. At every stop it was the same: blunt talk about overhauling treasured entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security and how he’s battle-tested and ready to take the fight to presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
“Only hearing about ‘Bridgegate’ of all things, I came into it thinking he was a bumbling incompetent; he’s not that. I was impressed — with his ideas, his thoughts, his direction,” said Carl Hubbert, 49, a Bellevue, Neb., resident who attended Christie’s town hall meeting in Council Bluffs. “The term RINO has been used with him a lot — I know that. But again, all of the points that he talked about today resonated with me.”
Speaking to reporters in Orange City on Friday evening, after addressing an attentive crowd of Republicans who filled the Northwestern College gymnasium to hear from him and three of his rivals, a confident Christie said he expects to be competitive by the time the first votes are cast in Iowa on Feb. 1.
“We get to January and I’m not doing as well and I’ll start to get a little bit nervous then. But, gosh, now, when 80 percent of the people in the last poll I saw in Iowa and New Hampshire say they haven’t made up their mind? That’s why I come out here and you campaign. Campaigns matter,” the governor said.
“I’m not bad on my feet; I hold my own. We’ll come out here, we’ll work hard — we’ll work hard and ask for the vote and earn people’s vote and I’ll think we’re going to do very well here in Iowa and I think we’re going to do very well in New Hampshire,” he added.
Christie’s optimism isn’t completely without merit.
Public opinion released on Monday showed that he has completely resuscitated his personal favorable ratings in Iowa, which act as a guide to how much voter support a candidate might attract. In an August survey from Public Policy Polling, Christie sported a 34 percent favorable, 44 percent unfavorable image. In PPP’s new poll, 48 percent of voters viewed Christie positively, only 28 percent negatively. Christie’s image experienced a similar transformation in New Hampshire.
But with such a deep field and at a disadvantage in resources, he still faces long odds. That was clear on Saturday at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.
Christie received a healthy reception from likely caucus-goers, and his decision to forgo a speech and take questions from the audience went over well. But where Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida were mobbed after their speeches, the crowd that milled around Christie was manageable, albeit steady. The difference in energy surrounding the contenders is important. Part of succeeding here is convincing voters that you’re competitive. That’s Christie’s test.
“If Iowans can open their mind, I think he’ll do well in Iowa. I think he’ll do better in the Eastern states,” conceded David Drescher, a middle-aged Christie campaign volunteer from west Des Moines who moved to Iowa from New Jersey 25 years ago and attended the same high school as the governor.
Christie’s Iowa backers include big supporters of Gov. Terry Branstad, a Republican institution and political force in the Hawkeye State, and a host of experienced caucus strategists. “I think the foundation is there to getting 20,000-30,000 people to vote for him in the caucuses,” said Jim Kersten, a lobbyist and former state senator.
Christie’s challenges include taking a bite out of front-runner Donald Trump, the New York billionaire businessman and reality television star that is dominating among Republicans who prefer their nominee to be brash, no-nonsense and authentic. His other hurdle is convincing Iowans that he’s serious about competing there.
Christie has spent most of his time in New Hampshire leaving the impression, not disputed by his campaign, that he sees victory in the state that hosts the first traditional primary contest, and votes immediately following Iowa as his ticket to contention for the nomination. But Christie said he plans to accelerate his Iowa schedule, including heading there right after next Tuesday’s debate in Milwaukee.
The key to Christie’s Iowa prospects, said Mikel Derby, another of the governor’s backers there, is whether he is as committed to the caucuses as he claims.
“I always said this is the one concern I had: Is he going to come here and play serious,” Derby said. “If he comes here and he plays, the straight talk that he delivers plays really well here.”
