POLITICO Nightly: Chris Christie’s New Hampshire gambit

BY LISA KASHINSKY Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speaks during the Faith and Freedom Coalition policy conference on June 23. | Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo MISSING IN ACTION — Chris Christie planned to run a New Hampshire-centric campaign in his pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination. The former New Jersey governor announced his bid there, and pledged to do “even more listening” than in the 100 town halls he held in the state as a presidential candidate in 2016. Yet the only time he’s come face to face with a Granite State voter over the past three weeks is through a TV screen. What explains his absence from the key early state that offers him his best — and perhaps only — chance to advance in the GOP primary? Christie’s campaign has run headlong into the realities of making the debate stage in 2023. The problem is that candidates must clear a 40,000-donor threshold to qualify for the August 23 debate and a small state like New Hampshire isn’t where the money’s at. So instead of hitting the trail these past three weeks, Christie hit the television and radio circuit. While other candidates have flooded the state in Christie’s absence — former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley included — he hasn’t set foot in New Hampshire since June 23. Christie “likely missed a few opportunities” to capitalize on his post-launch polling bump to third place in New Hampshire by giving up his ground game for a few weeks, Jim Merrill, a Republican consultant based in the state, told Nightly. In the end though, the former governor’s gambit paid off. Christie told CNN last week that he’s cleared the threshold to make the first debate. His campaign also reported raising nearly $1.7 million in the first 25 days of his campaign. A super PAC supporting his candidacy raised nearly $5.9 million in the same timeframe. “Media and the way people consume news has drastically changed. We’ve said from the beginning that this is going to be a nimble and modern campaign with a focus using earned media — whether that is taking it to Trump or getting to 40,000 donors,” a Christie campaign spokesperson said. The former governor’s temporary shift in strategy reflects the broader struggle many of the lower-tier candidates are facing as they scramble to make the first debate stage. Beyond hitting the donor threshold, candidates need at least one percent support in three qualifying national polls, or in two national polls and one early nominating state poll. Christie scored his first last week: a national Morning Consult poll that put him at three percent. Some candidates are turning to gimmicks to help meet the donor threshold. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is offering $20 gift cards to people who donate $1 to his campaign. Vivek Ramaswamy is paying supporters a 10-percent commission on any money they raise for his bid. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez is raffling off tickets to soccer star Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami debut to people who Venmo $1 to his campaign. Others, like Mike Pence, are going old-school and making the rounds on the fundraising circuit. The former vice president is expected to attend fundraisers in Chicago on Tuesday and Boston on Wednesday, per two people familiar with his plans. Failing to make a debate stage could prove disastrous for lesser-known or less-popular candidates, creating a negative feedback loop of low polling, poor fundraising and missed opportunities to reach new voters and donors that can eventually end a campaign. But skipping several weeks on the trail isn’t great either — unless you’re polling 20 points ahead like Trump. That’s particularly true in New Hampshire, a famously fickle state where voters demand face-to-face interaction with presidential hopefuls. “The national debate rules make camping out here more difficult,” Merrill, who’s not working with a candidate this election cycle, said. And Christie “is banking big on doing well in the August debate” to propel his candidacy beyond one state. Christie is also reemerging on the campaign trail. He’s scheduled a town hall in South Carolina on Friday. And his campaign said he’ll be back in New Hampshire later this month. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at lkashinsky@politico.com or on Twitter at @lisakashinsky .   JOIN 7/26 FOR A TALK ON THE NEW ENERGY ECONOMY:  Join POLITICO's lively discussion, "Powering a Clean Energy Economy," on July 26 at 5:15 PM ET. We'll explore the effectiveness of consumer-targeted policies to boost sustainability and create clean energy jobs. How are the Inflation Reduction Act's provisions faring? Which strategies truly sway consumer behavior? How are advances in technology shaking things up? And, what's the future for energy consumption reduction? Hear from featured speaker Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), among other experts. Don't miss this insightful event — REGISTER NOW.     WHAT'D I MISS? — Senate panel aims to restrict DHS’s domestic intelligence gathering: The Senate Intelligence Committee has approved legislation that would curtail a controversial domestic intelligence program that let Department of Homeland Security officials interrogate jailed Americans without their lawyers present. The proposal was passed last month in the committee’s bill governing the intelligence community, but it was not widely noticed. It would significantly limit the type of people that DHS’s intelligence officials can question as part of their domestic intelligence work. It also aims to curtail those officials’ authority to collect Americans’ social media posts and use them in intelligence products. — Ohio’s GOP Senate primary gets a third candidate: Ohio Republican Frank LaRose is launching a Senate bid today with a hard road ahead : He has to defeat two wealthy GOP rivals for the right to challenge one of Democrats’ savviest red-state incumbents. LaRose, Ohio’s secretary of state since 2019, is the third major candidate to jump into the primary to take on Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) next fall. He follows Bernie Moreno, a car dealership owner, and state Sen. Matt Dolan, a scion of the family that owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team. — Groups sue Florida over latest immigration law: Several groups sued the DeSantis administration today over Florida’s latest anti-immigration law , arguing that it “inflicts enormous harm on people’s ability to go about their daily lives.” Filed in Miami federal court, the lawsuit targets the wide-ranging immigration policies enacted by Florida earlier this year at the behest of Gov. Ron DeSantis. In challenging the new law, the groups are seeking to block the state from enforcing it on the grounds that it could impede federal immigration authorities and lead to “unlawful arrest, prosecution, and harassment.” NIGHTLY ROAD TO 2024 STAFFING UP — President Joe Biden is growing his unusually small reelection campaign team , announcing plans today to add three new people to the payroll, writes POLITICO’s Kelly Garrity. Former Rep. Cedric Richmond is joining as campaign co-chair. Former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Rufus Gifford will serve as finance chair of Biden-Harris 2024 and DNC National Finance Chair Chris Korge will join as finance chair of the Biden Victory Fund, the larger of the president’s joint fundraising committees. The Biden campaign has a run a bare-bones operations since the president announced his reelection bid in April, spending less than some Senate candidates and employing just four people: Campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez, principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks, spokesperson Kevin Munoz and general counsel Maury Riggan. The announcement comes days after the campaign revealed its $72 million fundraising haul with the DNC in the second quarter. Though it’s less than the past two presidents raised during the same time in their reelection bids, Biden does have more cash on hand than former President Barack Obama did at this point in the cycle — in part because of the lean operation he’s running. RUN IT BACK — What will a 2025 Trump presidency look like? It’s a question that Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman of The New York Times tried to answer in detail in a new piece. He’s planning, according to their reporting, a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government . Trump and his allies want to increase the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that currently operates with independence. This includes bringing agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission under direct presidential control. He also wants to bring back “impounding” funds, meaning that he can refuse to spend money that Congress has appropriated for programs a president doesn’t like — a tactic that lawmakers banned under President Richard Nixon. It all adds up to a plan to reorient the federal government in a way that hasn’t been done at least since the New Deal. AROUND THE WORLD Workers load grain at a port in Izmail, Ukraine, in April. | Andrew Kravchenko/AP Photo NO SAIL ZONE — Russia said today it would no longer guarantee the safety of ships passing through a Black Sea transit corridor as it announced its official withdrawal from a U.N.-brokered deal that had allowed Ukraine to export its grain surplus, write Susannah Savage and Veronika Melkozerova . Moscow’s refusal to extend the Black Sea Grain Initiative agreed a year ago means the “withdrawal of navigation safety guarantees, curtailment of the maritime humanitarian corridor, [and] restoration of the regime of a temporarily dangerous area in the northwestern Black Sea,” the foreign ministry said in a statement posted on Telegram. Some 33 million metric tons of Ukrainian grain and oilseeds have been shipped under the initiative over the last year, easing global food prices, but Russia claims the deal has not lived up to its “declared humanitarian goals.” The Joint Coordination Center, set up to allow U.N., Turkish, Ukrainian and Russian officials to oversee the initiative’s implementation, will also be disbanded, Russia said. “The export of Ukrainian food was almost immediately transferred to a purely commercial basis and until the last moment was directed to serving the selfish interests of Kiev and its Western curators,” said the Kremlin’s statement. READY FOR REPRISALS — The Biden administration is steeling itself for potential Chinese government reprisals for U.S. transit stops by Taiwan’s Vice President Lai Ching-te as he travels to and from Paraguay’s presidential inauguration next month, writes Phelim Kine . Taiwan’s Presidential Office confirmed today that Lai will transit in the U.S. to and from the August 15 inauguration of Paraguayan President-elect Santiago Peña. Beijing “should not use as a pretext any transit by Vice President Lai for brazen coercion or other provocative activities [and] should not be a pretext for interference in Taiwan’s election either,” said a senior administration official Sunday, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity. Lai’s profile is doubly problematic for Beijing because he is vying to replace outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen in the self-governing island’s January 2024 elections. He has reinforced his pro-Taiwan independence credentials by declaring in January that Taiwan “ is already an independent and sovereign nation.” And with an eye to a possible election victory — polling last month put Lai, the Democratic Progressive Party candidate, as the front-runner — he said last week that elected leaders of Taiwan should be welcomed to the White House.   UNLEASH THE FUTURE OF HEALTHCARE WITH POLITICO, A 7/20 INTERACTIVE EVENT: Imagine a future where rare genetic diseases are not only treatable, but potentially curable. Where our approach to chronic illness takes a monumental leap forward. That future is already taking shape in the form of next-generation health care treatments such as gene therapy. Join POLITICO on Thursday , July 20 and delve into the burgeoning field of gene therapies, which hold the power to redefine our health care landscape. Are you ready to explore this new frontier in health care? Don't miss this chance to be part of the conversation. REGISTER NOW .     NIGHTLY NUMBER 104° Fahrenheit The likely high temperature across much of Southern Europe this week , as government officials intensify heat warnings and ask local authorities to beef up services for the elderly who could be in need of medical care due to the heat. Power outages have already hit parts of Rome, and in Spain a wildfire that started Saturday on the Canary island of La Palma continued to burn out of control today. RADAR SWEEP LIFE’S TRADEOFFS — In many parts of Africa, sickle cell disease remains a significant killer. But with scientific advances — especially in genetic testing — questions around both treatment and prevention are becoming more complicated. Through tracing a love story between a sickle cell carrier and her partner — who has sickle cell himself — in Lagos, Nigeria, Krithika Varagur reports on weighing risk against attachment and what to sacrifice to be with someone you love. In Harper’s Magazine, Varagur takes on the weighty topics of sickness, health, life and death through the prism of one smaller story. PARTING IMAGE On this date in 1925: The Tennessee v. John Scopes case comes to an end, as Judge John T. Raulston of Winchester, Tenn., holds the decision. Scopes — a high school biology teacher who taught evolution in his classroom — was found guilty of violating the Butler Act, a Tennessee law that forbid the teaching of the theory of evolution in public schools because it contradicts the Bible. Scopes was fined $100, though the state Supreme Court later overturned the decision. The Butler Act remained law until 1967. | AP Photo Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh Katherine Long @katherinealong   FOLLOW US

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