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A Christie Carol

Christie may be old news as a candidate, but his departure adds a few arithmetic wrinkles to a race that already seemed over. Oh, and his people did trade calls with No Labels...

The fact that Chris Christie didn’t endorse Nikki Haley in his exit speech was probably a gift for her campaign: He had some of the highest unfavorables among Republican voters.
The fact that Chris Christie didn’t endorse Nikki Haley in his exit speech was probably a gift for her campaign: He had some of the highest unfavorables among Republican voters. Photo: Danielle Parhizkaran/Getty Images
Tara Palmeri
January 12, 2024

Okay, so we’re here: Finally, just four days away from the Iowa caucuses, and all two of the remaining, minimally viable Trump alternatives are desperately trying to cobble together a functional coalition based on the faintest whiff of momentum. Alas, Trump has an iron grip on the white, non-college-educated (or “poorly educated,” as he once memorably put it) voters who will likely hand him more than 50 percent of the vote in Iowa. So Monday night will be a coronation. A new Suffolk poll shows Trump at 54 percent in the state, Nikki Haley at 20 percent, and Ron DeSantis losing altitude with 13 percent. As my Puck partner Peter Hamby has noted, this may be the most boring Des Moines Marriott bar scene since the Gary Hart days.