Chris Christie announces his candidacy for president while heaping criticism on Donald Trump: "Selfish" and "Voldemort"

Chris Christie formally announced his candidacy for president in 2024. The former New Jersey governor made it official while holding his first campaign rally in New Hampshire, from where he assured he was worried about the country’s future, especially with Donald Trump as leader of the Republican Party. The latest GOP primary addition called on America to turn the page and promised to be a transparent president.

Wearing a blue suit with a light blue shirt and a patterned orange tie, Christie held a town hall in New Hampshire to publicly announce that he will again seek the White House. With historical quotes from John Adams, he took about 25 minutes to say what everyone went to hear.

“I can’t guarantee you success, but I can guarantee you that at the end of it, you will have no doubt in your mind who I am and what I stand for and whether I deserve it. That’s why I came back to Saint Anselm’s, and that’s why I came back to Manchester, and that’s why I came back to New Hampshire to tell all of you that I intend to seek the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 2024,” he said, then moving on to the Q&A, his “favorite part” of the evening.

Christie was tough on Joe Biden but even tougher on his former pal, who he almost ran with as vice president in 2016. After a few minutes of beating around the bush without naming him directly, he indicated that he was talking about a person that “is obsessed with the mirror, who never admits a mistake, who never admits a fault and who always finds someone else and something else to blame for whatever goes wrong but finds every reason to take credit for anything that goes right, is Donald Trump.”

“He is, for those of you who read the Harry Potter books, like Voldemort. He is the one who should not be named,” he added to the laughter of those present.

He also had something to say about Ron DeSantis, particularly his views on international politics. “All throughout our history, there have been moments when we’ve had to choose between big and small. And I would tell you, the reason I’m here tonight is because this is one of those moments, and you see it everywhere. We have candidates for president who say we shouldn’t care about what’s happening in Ukraine. We shouldn’t care that Russia wants to take a free and freedom-loving country and put it back under its thumb,” he added.

Christie emerges as the anti-Trump candidate

Despite being the first former candidate to support Trump in 2016, Christie is now emerging as one of the most critical against the former president, from whom he distanced himself after January 6, 2021. Christie will seek to appeal to more traditional Republicans and conservatives and move the Republican Party away from Trump.

Christie blames Trump for Republican defeats in 2018, 2020 and 2022 and argues that the party will lose again if he is the nominee for 2024. He also had sharp words for Ron DeSantis, whose foreign policy ideas the former governor dislikes.

A 60-year-old lawyer, he managed to flip a blue state red twice, in 2009 and 2013. In this second election, he exceeded 60% of the vote and became the first to do so since 1985. This will be his second attempt to get into the White House after in 2016 he took down Sen. Marco Rubio and then dropped out of the race after the New Hampshire primary.

The former New Jersey governor will enter an increasingly crowded field of candidates, consisting of Trump, DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Asa Hutchinson, Larry Elder, Tim Scott, Ryan Binkley, Perry Johnson and Mike Pence, who has already filed the appropriate paperwork with the Federal Election Commission.

The first debate is scheduled for Wednesday, August 23, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the 2024 convention will also take place. The Republican National Committee (RNC) has already published the requirements that candidates must meet to take the stage to exchange words with their opponents.

To participate, Christie would need to garner at least 1 % support in three national polls and have at least 40,000 unique donors, in addition to pledging to support the party’s eventual nominee.