He was supposed to be the brash, blunt New York-area candidate who told it like it is. Then came Donald Trump.

Chris Christie, the voluble New Jersey governor, is once again facing the possibility that he might be relegated to the junior varsity debate — and rival Republican campaigns and outside observers say his window to re-enter the top tier of presidential candidates is closing fast.


Wednesday night’s scene in New Hampshire showed the daunting challenge ahead of Christie. As CNN, Fox News and MSNBC covered Trump’s first town hall live — breaking only to run clips of Jeb Bush attacking the real estate tycoon — Christie was gasping for air on C-SPAN. Because the governor’s dimly lit event — a town hall at a restaurant outside of Manchester — was outdoors, the few viewers watching saw the candidate gradually disappear into darkness. The next day’s headlines duly focused on the Jeb-Donald contretemps, ignoring Christie’s play for a state he has made central to his fading White House hopes.

“He’s just not getting the traction that I think he was expecting,” said Andy Seale, the former chairman of the Republican Party in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire.

Christie has become such an also-ran that The Associated Press and The New York Times recently reassigned reporters dedicated to covering Christie — Jill Colvin and Kate Zernike — to other beats.

Then there are the polls.

If current trends hold, the New Jersey governor will likely lose his spot in the prime-time CNN/Reagan Library debate on Sept. 16, displaced by a surging Carly Fiorina. As of midday Thursday, Christie was in 11th place among GOP presidential contenders in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls — behind Trump, Bush, Ben Carson, Gov. Scott Walker, Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Ted Cruz, Fiorina, Sen. Rand Paul, Gov. John Kasich, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

On Tuesday, a new CNN/ORC poll found Christie in 11th place, with only 3 percent support among registered GOP voters. (A separate POLITICO analysis of the five most recent national polls that would factor into who would appear for the main debate finds Christie tied with Kasich for 10th place. For now.)

And with Trump owning the Straight Talk vote, said former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, there’s little Christie can do to claw his way back.

“We’re all living in Trump world,” said Kean. “And Trump world is something none of these political gurus or any of these guys conceived of when they [started] running their campaigns.”

He ticked off a list of what Christie has done right: town hall meetings, check; “he did well at the debate,” check; “he’s taking positions which seem to be along the line of what mainline Republicans want in New Hampshire.” Check.

It’s all, Kean said, exactly what Christie should be doing — yet there’s no sign that any of it is getting traction.

“If you’re doing everything that your campaign consultants and staff say you should be doing and nothing’s working, that’s a real problem,” Kean said. “And nothing’s working.”

Trump’s dominance of the news cycle is a major factor holding Christie down, others said. How, Republicans wonder, can Christie hope to be the one dropping truth bombs when Trump is strafing voters 24/7?

“It’s hard to be the candidate making his mark for frankness when your competition is Trump,” said Katie Packer Gage, a former top aide to Mitt Romney. “So he needs to find a new shtick or hope Trump trips up soon.”

But it’s not just Trump. Operatives in rival campaigns also point to the threat to Christie from Kasich — another brash, plain-spoken governor with a focus on New Hampshire. Kasich has surged to third place in the state, according to last week’s Franklin-Pierce University/Boston Herald poll, behind Trump and Bush.

Meanwhile, Christie has just “stalled,” said Jamie Burnett, a Jeb Bush supporter and Republican political strategist who served as Romney’s political director in New Hampshire.

“I think part of the reason is that there is a lot of competition. There are a lot of people occupying that space, whether it’s Bush or Rubio or Fiorina or Walker or Kasich, that all more or less appeal to a similar voter segment,” Burnett said.

Christie’s fall is a contrast from the shadow campaign phase of the 2016 presidential race, when his name was often bandied about as a top-tier contender.

“People thought, ‘Oh, he is going to be a front-runner,’” said Charlie Arlinghaus, the former New Hampshire regional director for the Republican National Committee. “We didn’t know if Jeb Bush was going to get in or not. Nobody predicted Donald Trump or any of these things.”

Arlinghaus, who isn’t currently behind any Republican candidate, said that all isn’t necessarily lost for Christie.

“Is he in a great spot? No, he’s not,” Arlinghaus said. “It’s not clear at this point whether he’s going to be a finalist or not. On the other hand, he’s campaigning hard here and people — your goal here is to get on peoples’ dance card so that they want to think about you a little bit. Right now, that’s where people are. And I think that a lot of people who are looking at Kasich or Bush or Trump, for different reasons, might also end up taking a look at Christie.”

Even critics of Christie point to the strong team he’s assembled in New Hampshire. Matt Mowers, the director of the Christie campaign in the Granite State, is regularly praised by other campaigns as a seasoned and adept operative. The Christie campaign on Thursday rolled out seven prominent Republicans in the New Hampshire statehouse who endorsed the governor. The campaign also points to the 59 public events and 17 town halls Christie has done so far in the state.

Tucker Martin, an adviser for the pro-Christie America Leads super PAC, also pointed to an aggressive focus on New Hampshire. The super PAC has put $1.1 million in a TV/digital buy in New Hampshire and $2.8 million on a “pre-buy” on New Hampshire’s WMUR for Nov. 16 through Feb. 9. The super PAC is also conducting a mobile advertising campaign targeted at attendees at campaign events. The super PAC is also conducting online surveys of potential voters for Christie. The data from those surveys will be used to boost turnout for Christie.

In an email, Mike DuHaime, Christie’s top strategist, said he feels good about the “progress we continue to make in NH.”

“Since announcing, the Governor’s favorable ratio continues to rise in New Hampshire, a leading indicator of support,” DuHaime said. “In the average public polls that measure image ratings, the Governor’s favorable rating has improved by 10 points in New Hampshire over the three months prior to his announcement.”

Christie campaign communications director Samantha Smith said the campaign was confident that Christie would be in the main debate in September.

“He’ll continue to have a really aggressive political and fundraising schedule over the next month just like he has over the last month as a declared candidate, and he’ll continue to do that in New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina,” Smith said. She also pushed back on arguments that Christie was being pushed out by Kasich and Fiorina.

“I think there is room for everyone very early in the process,” Smith said. “We’re at the end of August. With so many candidates with a long way to go, I don’t think that they’re taking up all the space.”

But even if Christie does qualify for another prime-time debate, another Republican operative whose firm is working for a candidate polling near the front of the primary field was skeptical that he could gain much traction.

“To me, it just delays the inevitable. I don’t know how he leapfrogs the top four or five people right now. I can see how he stays in for a couple months. But I don’t know how he really jostles and all of a sudden is taking Jeb voters away or Kasich voters,” the operative said.