New York Times
(The Upshot)
By Nate Cohn
June 30, 2015
Chris
Christie is highly unlikely to win the nomination. The reasons, like
his moderate-conservative views and the ethics scandal over bridge
traffic in New Jersey, have
been summarized elsewhere. But many candidates with little or no chance
to win the nomination nonetheless play a big role in presidential
primaries, and Mr. Christie could be one of them. He could drain votes
from Jeb Bush, widening the opening for Marco Rubio
or even improving Scott Walker’s odds to win both Iowa and New
Hampshire.
The
long-shot candidates who matter tend to be the natural candidates of a
large and often dissatisfied faction of a political party, whether as a
result of their identity
or their stances on the issues. Think of Rick Santorum in 2012, a
natural candidate of the evangelical Protestant voters dissatisfied with
Mitt Romney. Or Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator running against
Hillary Clinton.
Mr.
Christie’s path to relevance depends on his becoming a lot more like
Mr. Sanders or Mr. Santorum than he would care to admit. He would need
to become the natural candidate
of the party’s relatively moderate, affluent, secular, blue-state
voters.
Mr.
Christie is not to the blue-state Republicans as Mr. Sanders is to the
progressive left, or Mr. Santorum was to evangelicals. He is not the
unconditional, unabashed
supporter of the views of the party’s moderate wing. If anything, Mr.
Christie has spent more time pitching himself to conservatives than any
other group as part of his effort to remain competitive.
But
it is nonetheless easy to imagine how Mr. Christie emerges as a strong
candidate for relatively moderate, metropolitan, blue-state Republicans.
Here,
the historical comparison is John McCain. By any relevant measure, Mr.
McCain was about as conservative as George W. Bush in 2000. In this
sense, Mr. McCain was
nothing like Mr. Santorum or Mr. Sanders. But Mr. McCain’s iconoclasm
and Mr. Bush’s strength among Southerners and evangelicals gave Mr.
McCain a strong pitch to relatively moderate, secular, Northern and
independent voters.
Recent
news reports suggest that Mr. Christie, deprived of the opportunity to
make a broader pitch, is planning to run the sort of “straight talk”
campaign that served
Mr. McCain well in New Hampshire. The moderate positions that make Mr.
Christie a tough sell for conservatives, like his stances on immigration
and gun control, make him a relatively good fit for the state’s
moderate voters: 47 percent of the electorate was
moderate in 2012. In an overlapping category, an equal share in the
state identified as “independent.”
Mr.
Christie will face plenty of competition for relatively moderate and
independent voters in New Hampshire. Mr. Bush, John Kasich, Lindsey
Graham and Rand Paul all have
claims to the moderate and independent vote. Mr. Rubio’s appeal could
be broad enough to appeal to these voters as well, even if he is
unlikely to advance a message targeted at them. But Mr. Christie’s
strength as a campaigner makes it all the easier to envision
how he could secure a meaningful foothold in the nation’s first
primary. There is a reason, after all, that he twice won the
governorship of a solidly Democratic state and was once considered a
front-runner for the nomination.
If
Mr. Christie’s campaign took off, it would mainly be at Mr. Bush’s
expense. It is hard to see Mr. Bush winning Iowa, where the most
conservative voters reign, which
makes it all but necessary for him to win New Hampshire. A weaker Mr.
Bush would give Mr. Rubio a better chance to win New Hampshire, which
might be as important to his chances as it is to those of Mr. Bush. It
would also give Mr. Walker a better chance of
following a win in Iowa with a win of his own in New Hampshire.
But in all those situations, Mr. Christie probably goes back to New Jersey.
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