(NewsNation) — Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie isn’t dialing back criticism of Donald Trump despite getting booed at the Republican presidential primary debate for attacking the former president.
“I expected that,” Christie said Monday on “CUOMO,” calling those in attendance a “highly partisan crowd” of primary voters who nominated Trump twice.
Christie has been trying to carve out a lane as the anti-Trump candidate in a primary race where he’ll likely need to win over the former president’s supporters to emerge from the crowded field.
“That arena doesn’t represent where the whole party is,” he said, citing polling out of New Hampshire that shows him in second place in the state.
He was one of only two candidates on the GOP debate stage who said they wouldn’t support Trump as the nominee if he is convicted in any of the four criminal trials he is set to face.
“We now have a front-runner who is going to be on criminal trial starting the day before Super Tuesday. This is a dream come true for Joe Biden and the Democrats,” Christie said. “(The charges) are real, they are happening, and we cannot nominate someone who is under four felony indictments and think that we are going to beat Joe Biden because we won’t.”
The former New Jersey governor has also sought to position himself as the candidate who can tackle “big” problems, such as immigration and entitlement reform.
“Those are the things I want to try to do, and I think they are going to break through, but you got to be patient and keep being persistent about the message, and I think we’ll get there,” Christie said. “This is about someone who knows how to use the levers of power and the bully pulpit to be able to get results. … I am the guy who can bring results.”
Nationally, his message is resonating with just 3% of Republican voters, according to polling averages from RealClearPolitics.
That’s less support than Vivek Ramaswamy, a political newcomer who has surged onto the scene and landed a spot center stage at last week’s debate in Milwaukee.
The two sparred, with Christie at one point saying he’d “had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT” and knocking Ramaswamy’s opening line from earlier in the program.
“Anything that’s new gets a lot of attention,” Christie said Monday of Ramaswamy’s rise in the polls. “In the end, people are going to want someone who’s got a proven record of being able to beat Democrats, and I’m the only person who was on that stage Wednesday night who’s ever beaten an incumbent Democrat, and I did it in a blue state getting outspent three to one.”