MANCHESTER, N.H. — Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has a message to disaffected Democrats and independents in New Hampshire who’re fed up with 2024 presidential contenders.

“Vote within the Republican primaries, child. “We’re the one recreation on the town, and we’re the one method to cease Donald Trump,” he advised voters at a restaurant in Derry final week throughout a tour of the nation’s first main state.

Whereas his GOP rivals, together with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, head to Iowa within the weeks earlier than voting begins, Christie usually has New Hampshire to himself. He is charting a path right here as the previous president’s most vocal critic within the race, portraying himself as the one Republican keen to confront him instantly, and arguing that Trump would lose to President Joe Biden subsequent November if he have been the get together’s nominee.

Though he’s unpopular in nationwide polls, some polls carried out right here in September put his assist within the low double digits — on par with different main opponents of Trump, although nonetheless far behind Trump.

“There’s one thing happening,” Christie mentioned in a wide-ranging interview final week in Manchester. “I am unable to let you know what number of airports I stroll via the place folks say to me, like, ‘Save us from him.’ ‘You are the one one telling the reality.’”

After working for president eight years in the past and ending a disappointing sixth within the state, Christie this time is a person on a mission. With a small employees and a marketing campaign largely supported by media appearances, the previous governor and tv analyst is in his aspect, relishing his function as assault canine and having what seems to be real enjoyable.

“If I advised you after I arrived in June that on the finish of September I might be $700,000 behind Ron DeSantis, you’d have advised me I used to be utterly loopy. However right here I’m,” he mentioned fortunately.

For Christie, who performed a key function in Trump’s election, it is as a lot about profitable as it’s about redemption. Christie was the primary senior GOP official to endorse Trump in 2016 and has continued to function a key adviser, main Trump’s transition workforce and serving to put together him for the debates. However after 20 years of friendship, Christie broke up with Trump on the night time of the 2020 election when the then-president falsely declared victory whereas votes have been nonetheless being counted.

Christie sees his function, partially, as warning the get together of the hazards of supporting a person who has been indicted 4 instances and who might be a convicted felon by the point the final election comes round. As a former prosecutor, he tries to distill the importance of what can appear to be a blur of developments throughout a dizzying variety of instances.

“My job, as a result of nobody else goes to have the ability to do it on this race — and I do not suppose anybody else has the expertise that I’ve to have the ability to actually clarify it — is to elucidate to folks how unhealthy it’s,” Christie mentioned. “If he’s the nominee, will probably be a catastrophe for the Republican Celebration as a result of he’ll lose.”

Christie is making a particular play for unbiased voters in New Hampshire following Biden’s choice to skip the state’s main completely.

At his city corridor occasions, Christie is in his aspect, telling jokes and telling tales. He begins out as a late-night discuss present host, delivering a monologue specializing in the information of the day. He then launches right into a question-and-answer session throughout which he shares poignant tales, together with his aged father’s function as sole caregiver to his spouse, who has Alzheimer’s illness. It is a acquainted function for Christie, who has managed greater than 200 city halls over the course of his profession.

However past the traces and criticism, Christie’s city halls are a spot of catharsis for former Trump voters like him. He criticizes Trump whereas nonetheless praising his many accomplishments and affords an impassioned speech to voters who really feel they not have a spot within the get together.

“I do not wish to hear that you just’re defeated,” he advised a disillusioned voter at Yard Brewery and Kitchen in Manchester final week. “Look, it is okay to confess that Trump turned out to be poor.”

Christie’s attracted about 80 attendees, a few of whom had voted for Trump however have been uninterested in his antics. Others mentioned they often vote Democratic however are in search of a non-Trump various to Biden.

They have been folks like Robin Stewart, a 67-year-old retiree who lives in Londonderry. She mentioned she has been a Democrat all her life however switched her registration to unbiased so she may vote for Christie in subsequent yr’s Republican main.

“I feel he’s essentially the most trustworthy and has a greater likelihood of working with folks,” she mentioned. “We can’t have this fixed division and combating that now we have now.”

Stewart would not remorse voting for Biden. “He did every thing I needed him to do,” she mentioned.

However she believes that his political model is not efficient “as a result of the character of the folks has modified.” “Persons are not keen to work effectively collectively,” she mentioned. “I feel you need to be more durable now.”

The story was related for Debbie Rabson, 67, a trainer from Manchester. Rapson, a registered unbiased, voted for Biden within the final election, however is praying for higher choices this time. She is especially troubled by Trump’s grip on the Republican Celebration.

“To be actually trustworthy, I do not know what’s fallacious with the thoughts of the American public,” she mentioned, including: “How folks may start to imagine he is a viable candidate is what amazes me, as an clever human being.” . I believed, as a rustic, we have been smarter than that. “You make me unhappy.”

At a roundtable breakfast at Mary Ann’s Diner in Derry the following morning, nurse Cynthia Mendez left her personal desk to take a seat in Christie’s and praised him for standing as much as Trump.

“He is a narcissist. He wakes up each morning and says, ‘What can the world do for me?'” she mentioned. “This isn’t about Republicans or Democrats, that is a few man who made a mistake.”

“The truth that you’re standing right here towards him exhibits that you’re a man and also you get up for what is true,” she mentioned.

“I simply met Cindy, my working mate,” Christie joked.

Mendez later mentioned she favored what she heard however had not settled on a candidate.

“I feel I am going to give it consideration,” she mentioned.

Others stay skeptical of Christie’s strategy.

Lou Abboud, a 71-year-old Republican sitting in one other sales space, mentioned he has not but selected a nominee however believes the previous governor must do extra than simply criticize Trump on a regular basis.

“It wants a unique technique,” he added.

An AP-NORC ballot carried out in October confirmed {that a} majority of Republicans (56%) and Democrats (54%) view Christie unfavorably, with just one in 5 having a positive view.

However Christie insists he has the time and path to run. He believes a powerful end in New Hampshire and a powerful efficiency in South Carolina, the place he’s additionally campaigning, will make him the final man standing towards Trump.

“Nearly all of folks on this get together don’t need Trump to be the nominee,” he mentioned. “It’s a query of who will have the ability to appeal to their consideration and excite them to unite the opposition. That is what the following few months will reveal.”

He and his aides level out that he additionally has the sources to outpace a lot of his rivals, spending only a tenth of what DeSantis does every day due to a lean operation of simply over a dozen folks that’s powered not by adverts however by tv and radio interviews.

When requested if he was disillusioned that so many donors have been nonetheless on the sidelines — with a number of teams working anti-Trump adverts however nonetheless refusing to get behind a candidate — Christie mentioned that was why he was working within the first place.

“I’m the knights,” he mentioned. “That is the most important motive I obtained into the race. … I used to be like, ‘Nobody’s going to beat him.’” ___

Ramer reported from Derry.