To gain traction in the Republican presidential primary, Chris Christie has gone all out by going all in—specifically, with a massive ad campaign in New Hampshire that he hopes might fan the dying flames of his presidential run. But seeing as he’s mired in the low single-digits of RealClearPolitics’s rolling average of the last three weeks of polling, it’s far more likely that he will just crash and burn.
Christie’s campaign unveiled a seven-figure ad buy in New Hampshire that launched Thursday. In the first ad, Christie addresses calls for him to drop out of the race and tries to bring the focus back to stopping Donald Trump.
“Some people say I should drop out of this race. Really? I’m the only one saying Donald Trump is a liar,” Christie says of the man whose presidential transition team he briefly led.
Trump will “burn America to the ground to help himself,” Christie warns in the ad. “Every Republican leader says that in private. I’m the only one saying it in public.”
The next ad, which launches Friday, will include a “call for unity and moving past our differences,” a Christie aide told Politico, speaking anonymously. The ads will run on both broadcast and digital media platforms throughout New Hampshire.
Christie has hung his hopes on a successful breakthrough in the Granite State. After flaming out spectacularly in the state’s primary during his 2016 run, Christie has been laser-focused on charming the state’s Republicans and formally launched his current campaign in New Hampshire.
But the new ad buy is one of the biggest expenses of Christie’s campaign thus far, and unfortunately, it looks unlikely to pay the dividends he’ll need if he wants to climb up in the race. Christie has an average of just 3.3 percent support in national polls, far behind Trump’s average of 62.5 percent. In New Hampshire, Christie is faring comparatively better, but that’s not saying much: RealClearPolitics has him third in the race with 10.5 in the state’s rolling average. That puts him more than 14 points behind Nikki Haley and a daunting 36 points behind Trump.
Christie has spent his entire campaign hammering the same message that his new ad buy is themed around: painting Trump, as well as a few other Republican candidates, as too extreme. But it’s not clear that casting himself as a more moderate option holds much appeal for Republican voters. The rather terrifying reality is that it looks as if many Trump voters actually want a candidate willing to break the laws. It could be that the money Christie plans to spend highlighting the fact that Trump wants to “burn America to the ground” will end up being an in-kind donation to the former president.