TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and his “telling it like it is” campaign might be floundering in the national polls, but he has perhaps the most to gain should firebrand Republican Donald Trump’s presidential campaign fall off the rails.
There is no clear evidence that Trump’s sharp criticism of Arizona Sen. John McCain — or any of his recent antics — will hurt the business mogul’s standing in the polls. An ABC News/Washington Post survey out Monday showed Trump garnered a GOP-leading 24%.
But, as Fortune magazine noted, Trump’s support in that survey fell off considerably in the data collection that followed his weekend attack on McCain, remarks denounced as over-the-top by many GOP candidates and leaders.
“He’s a war hero because he was captured,” Trump said of the Arizona senator, a former prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. “I like people that weren’t captured, OK?”
The attack followed earlier Trump broadsides against Mexican immigrants.
Herein lies opportunity for Christie, who in most surveys languishes in the rear of the GOP field.
The governor and Trump staked out similar ground as self-described truth-tellers, both vowing to shake up the status quo with unflinching candor. Only Trump has delivered on his promise, at least in terms of roiling the crowded GOP field and stealing attention.
Political analysts say Christie, by reputation, would have the brash mantel to himself should the Trump campaign fully implode. But even Christie, whose YouTube moments include admonishing a critic to “sit down and shut up,” will have to raise the decibel level to match trump Trump.
Christie has been careful not to agitate Trump supporters. On the campaign trail Monday in Hilton Head, S.C., Christie was pressed for comment by an audience member at a town hall. Christie said “I am through commenting on things Donald Trump says,” according to Philly.com.
“I know John McCain,” Christie said, describing the senator as an “American hero, period.” McCain spent 5 1/2 years as a POW in North Vietnam.
Even as a host of GOP candidates and officials have condemned Trump’s McCain remarks, Christie held his fire.
Matthew Hale, a political science professor at Seton Hall University, said there may be “a realization by Christie that Trump is eventually going to implode on his own.’’
“When that happens, he wants those people attracted to Trump to have a place to go, specifically to Christie,” Hale said.
Christie adopted the campaign slogan “telling it like it is” to portray himself as a straight-talker. But he has been nothing less than convivial on the campaign trail, perhaps to counteract high disapproval ratings from voters, as evidenced in months of declining poll numbers. Many GOP voters soured on Christie after the George Washington Bridge scandal, and after he was seen as too cozy with President Obama in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.
On the stump, Christie has been one of the few Republicans offering specific policy proposals on entitlements, education and treatment for drug-addicted nonviolent offenders. That strategy has attracted far less attention than Trump’s antics, which on Tuesday included an attack on GOP rival Sen. Lindsey Graham, whose personal cellphone number Trump read aloud at a campaign stop in South Carolina.
While Trump’s comments on border security and Mexican immigrants were condemned by many across the political spectrum, they were embraced by some in the GOP camp, including former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who told an interviewer, in words that might resonate with the Christie campaign : “I believe Mr. Trump is kind of telling it like it really, truly is.’’
“I think that the people of Arizona realize that we picked up the tab for the majority of the violence that comes across our border,” Brewer added.
The attention on Trump hasn’t helped Christie’s current standing in the polls, a circumstance the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart joked about. He said Christie is “second in the Loud Northeastern Egomaniac primary.’’
In a USA TODAY poll last week, Christie came in ninth among GOP candidates for the 2106 nomination, putting him at risk of not being on the stage for the first televised debate. Trump was first. Only the top 10 candidates in an average of five national surveys will make the cut for the Aug. 6 debate in Cleveland.
Several analysts say it doesn’t matter for Christie how Trump fares in the race: They think the Christie campaign can’t prevail. Indeed, his polls numbers were at a standstill before Trump seized the spotlight.
“Certainly Trump is causing problems for all second- and third-tier candidates in terms of the debates, given he is squeezing air time from all the rest of them,” Princeton University’s Julian Zelizer said. “But Bridgegate, the state of the New Jersey economy, the challenges (of being another) moderate Republican, these are at the core of Christie’s struggles, not Trump.’’
Rutgers University’s David Greenberg agreed.
“Christie’s ticket to the nomination was his ability to straddle the far-right and mainstream conservative wings of the Republican Party,” Greenberg said. “He squandered his cachet with the far-right by embracing Obama during Hurricane Sandy, and Bridgegate stripped away his luster.’’
Trump remarks on immigration caused an additional problem for Christie.
In June, Christie addressed the Latino Coalition’s Small Business Summit in Washington, D.C., where he criticized Republicans for “speaking in a way that doesn’t sound very welcoming to new members.” He boasted of winning 51% of the Latino vote in the 2013 New Jersey gubernatorial election.
A week later, Trump announced his candidacy and ripped into Mexico and Mexicans.
Several GOP presidential contenders pushed back hard at Trump, but Christie didn’t join them.
In a Fox and Friends interview, Christie called Trump’s comments “inappropriate,” but refused to go further, saying, “That’s now the 50th time I’ve said it. It’s going to be the last time I say it.”
That response disappointed Bradley Beach resident Mahonrry Hidalgo, an advocate for immigrants. Hidalgo said Christie is missing a chance to show leadership.
“You cannot be silent and decide the issues you want to talk about and what issues you don’t want to talk about. These are issues the candidates need to confront,” Hidalgo said.
Contributing: Andrew Ford of the Asbury Park Press
