Chris Christie’s political arc, from 2011 GOP darling to 2023 never (again) Trumper

Chris Christie, the bombastic former governor of New Jersey and again-contender for the Republican nomination for president, has seen his political potential boosted and busted in the last dozen years.

He’s evolved from the Republican Party’s next-up luminary to government corruption punchline to political punching bag to beach meme to would-be presidential adviser cut out of the loop.

And he’s back for more.

A look at key moments for Christie in the last 12 years:

Christie had just turned 49 in September 2011 and was serving his first term as governor when Nancy Reagan invited him to speak at the presidential library named for her late husband.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library was a stage that all Republicans seeking the White House had to cross.

Christie had already taken himself out of the running in the 2012 field to challenge President Barack Obama’s bid for a second term, even as GOP insiders urged him to reconsider, wary of the chances for Mitt Romney, who would go on to be the party’s unsuccessful nominee.

In front of an ebullient audience of about 900 people, Christie touted his first term and lashed out at Obama. But he didn’t become a candidate in that most inviting of environments, letting the party down as easy as he could, making them wait.

Christie met Obama on the tarmac at an airport in Atlantic City, six days before the November 2012 presidential election, to inspect the tremendous damage inflicted days before on New Jersey by Hurricane Sandy, dubbed a “superstorm.”

They shook hands. Obama put his left hand on Christie’s right shoulder. Conservatives recoiled at the sight of a GOP rising star in a “hug” with the man they wanted to evict from the White House.

The damage was done.

“It was a handshake like you would shake hands with anyone,” Christie told The Inquirer a year later. “It was a perfectly natural, casual, normal type of greeting between two people. And you know, it’s become legend.”

Christie ran for a second term in 2013, emphasizing his ability to work with Democrats in Trenton and across New Jersey. The result: an astounding 22-point Election Day triumph in a deep blue state.

His brand was burnished and about to expand.

Christie took over two weeks later as chair of the Republican Governors Association, just the sort of organization an aspiring presidential candidate can use to build relationships and court big-dollar donors.

He was all over CNN. Time magazine put him on the cover. A super PAC launched with eyes on 2016.

But critics complained that Christie’s big sweep was all about Christie, leaving his fellow Republicans behind as the governor’s wide margin showed no signs of “coattails” down ballot in legislative races dominated by Democrats.

The George Washington Bridge, which connects North Jersey to upper Manhattan, loomed over Christie’s 2016 presidential ambitions.

In the wake of his landslide reelection, investigators probed claims that top Christie lieutenants had intentionally snarled traffic on the bridge as payback because the mayor of Fort Lee, a Democrat, had refused to endorse Christie, who had been stressing his bipartisan support.

Christie said he didn’t know of any scheme to punish the mayor and then cut loose the lieutenants. Donald Trump joked about the scandal on the campaign trail in 2015: “He knew about it. He totally knew about it.”

The scandal metastasized into criminal charges, a trial, prison sentences for the lieutenants, and then a 2020 ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court overturning those convictions. Christie claimed vindication.

Christie opened his 2016 presidential campaign in the middle of 2015 and near the bottom of the polling. Another candidate was faring even worse: Trump.

Things would go very differently from there for the two men, for the country, and for GOP norms about how to run for president.

Christie touted his executive experience in office, casting the race’s front-runners as glad-handers inexperienced in hands-on governing.

He was, as always, pugilistic. He was about to become one in a series of punching bags for Trump, who reveled in taunting his opponents.

Christie underperformed in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, his spark from 2011 fading away. Eight months after he entered the race, Christie endorsed Trump, saying the eventual GOP nominee was “rewriting the playbook” on how to run for president.

Christie attempted to incorporate himself into Trump world. That gave rise to a series of humiliating setbacks. There was even a news conference where pundits suggested Christie looked like he’d been taken “hostage” by Trump.

He made Trump’s short list for vice president but was passed over for Mike Pence, who was then the governor of Indiana. He led Trump’s transition team to take over the White House, developing 30 binders full detailed plans. Then Trump dumped him after the Bridgegate indictments, along with those plans.

The culprit: Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who held a grudge. Years earlier, Christie as a U.S. attorney in New Jersey had prosecuted Kushner’s father, sending him to prison.

Christie later lamented the wasted work in his book, Let Me Finish.

“Literally. All thirty binders were tossed in a Trump Tower dumpster, never to be seen again,” he wrote.

There was humiliation back home, too. Christie took his family to Island Beach State Park during the summer of 2017 in the midst of a government shutdown that locked others out from the beach.

A Newark Star-Ledger photographer, from a helicopter, captured images of Christie lounging in a beach chair. It would become an iconic representation of what many saw as Christie’s for-me-but-not-for-thee attitude.

The image sparked a social media conflagration. Christie saw his two terms as governor reduced to mocking memes. He later complained that the attention upset his children more than anything before in his political life.

Christie says he tried to reach Trump during the calamitous Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, hoping to offer advice on how to quell the violence. Trump did not respond to his calls.

Still, Christie said he considered Trump a friend.

He returned to the Reagan Library in September 2021 for a speech that urged Republicans to move on from the 2020 election, with several lines apparently aimed at the lies Trump continues to tell about that contest being “rigged against him.”

“We need to renounce the conspiracy theorists and the truth deniers. The ones who know better and the ones who are just plain nuts,” Christie said. “We need to give our supporters facts that will help them put all those fantasies to rest.”

He also urged Republicans to not bind their party to just one individual.

By March 2023, it was over between Christie and Trump. Christie told Axios that he would never again back Trump for office, even if Trump is the party’s nominee in 2024.

Jan. 6, and Trump’s use of that day in political rallies, was too much, Christie said.

“I can’t help him,” Christie said. “No way.”

Of course, those comments came as Christie was gearing up for his own campaign.

Christie is a skilled debater, throwing verbal jabs and rhetorical haymakers. If Trump takes a stage with him, things are likely to go from contentious to chaotic.

Trump, as seen in 2020 debates with President Joe Biden, has no tolerance for the traditional protocols in political debates, lashing out in every direction.

But it’s not just about the fight, Christie insisted in April in an interview with Politico, declaring that he “is not just paid assassin.”

Trump’s allies on conservative cable channels are railing about Christie. And Trump this month mocked Christie’s standing in the polls.

Christie insists he’s running to win and that he sees a path to that victory.

It will have to run right through Trump.