CHANGE OF HEART — When Chris Christie launches his second presidential campaign tonight in New Hampshire, he’ll enter the GOP primary as a longshot, buried in the polls and seemingly without a path to the nomination. Among other obstacles, recent polling suggests the former New Jersey governor is deeply unpopular with Republican voters. He has the highest unfavorable ratings of any candidate in the field. Sixty percent say they would not support him under any circumstances . No other contender has numbers even close to that bad. To become a serious contender, Christie needs to meet the threshold necessary to appear in the August GOP debate, showcase his formidable debating skills that evening and then gain traction in the early state where the political terrain figures to be the most favorable to him — New Hampshire. It’s a tall order, in part because Christie fell flat in New Hampshire in his unsuccessful 2016 bid, despite holding more than 100 town halls in the state and getting more local endorsements than any other candidate . But that’s not the core of Christie’s problem. His main obstacle will be explaining what he did after his disappointing sixth place finish. First, Christie dropped out of the race. Then, two weeks later, he delivered an endorsement that will live in infamy. Just days before a pivotal Super Tuesday, with Donald Trump on the defensive against Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, Christie unexpectedly appeared by Trump’s side at a Texas rally and delivered his blessing. Even by the standards of the unpredictable 2016 GOP primary, Christie’s endorsement was a stunner. After spending the campaign referring to Trump as a “carnival barker,” belittling his readiness for the White House and talking about the importance of governance, the New Jersey governor suddenly provided Trump with critical validation from a respected member of the Republican establishment. “I just don’t think that he’s suited to be president of the United States,” Christie had said of the billionaire mogul a few months earlier. “I don’t think his temperament is suited for that and I don’t think his experience is.” Until that moment, Trump didn’t have a single endorsement from a Republican governor or senator. He had just two endorsements from House members — both of whom would later be indicted and resign from Congress. (Trump would also later pardon the two congressmen.) And Christie was no ordinary endorser. His star might have been tarnished by the infamous Bridgegate scandal and his own presidential bid might have gone nowhere, but his imprimatur still mattered a great deal. Just a few years earlier, in 2011, a planeload of Iowa activists and donors made a pilgrimage to New Jersey to urge Christie to run for president in 2012. In the earliest stages of the 2016 presidential race, Christie topped the polls as the frontrunner. The shock of Christie’s endorsement — and the nakedly opportunistic vibe it conveyed — proved costly. Christie faced withering criticism within his own party. The Union Leader, which has a storied history in Republican presidential primary politics, immediately rescinded its earlier endorsement of Christie. "Boy, were we wrong,” publisher Joseph W. McQuaid wrote . “Watching Christie kiss the Donald’s ring this weekend — and make excuses for the man Christie himself had said was unfit for the presidency — demonstrated how wrong we were. Rather than standing up to the bully, Christie bent his knee. In doing so, he rejected the very principles of his campaign that attracted our support.” By the time Christie left office in 2018, he ranked in the polls as the most unpopular governor in state history. Democrats captured the governorship upon his departure. At the time of the endorsement, Christie explained that Trump offered the best chance of defeating Hillary Clinton. He later said he wanted to make Trump “a better candidate.” Now, Christie appears set to embark on something akin to a mea culpa tour, running almost explicitly to stop Trump, or at least to deliver the kind of bracing attacks the top contenders are afraid to unleash. To get anywhere, however, criticism of the former president isn’t going to be enough. Christie will likely need a more fulsome explanation of why he bent the knee, what he thinks of his decision seven years later and why voters should believe him. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at cmahtesian@politico.com or on Twitter at @PoliticoCharlie .
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