Chris Christie has pushed back on the calls by some of his fellow GOP candidates to drop out of the race and is taking aim at Republican frontrunner Donald Trump in his first major ad blitz. Christie’s campaign released two 30-second television advertisements on Monday that take aim at Trump, as previously revealed in a memo by the campaign. One ad features Christie speaking to a small intimate group of supporters in New Hampshire, saying “Mr. Trump is not a conservative, and any New Hampshire voter who cares about the record instead of the rhetoric will conclude that I am by far the best qualified candidate to beat Hillary Clinton and to be president of the United States.”
The other commercial features a series of interviews with fellow GOP candidate’s criticizing Trump, from Carly Fiorina’s comments about Trump’s “woman’s card” remark to Jeb Bush questioning Trump’s “national security” qualifications and Jeb saying “Donald Trump’s language is divisive”. Christie’s advertisement ends with Christie saying “The chattering class can talk about our differences, but when it comes right down to it, we need to make sure the next president of the United States can go into that Oval Office and do what has to be done.”
The commercials are an effort by Christie to make sure that voters in New Hampshire know that he is the most experienced GOP candidate in the race and that he, unlike Trump, has a record to back up his promises. By drumming up support for his campaign in the Granite State, the thinking is that a strong showing on Super Tuesday and beyond will help Christie make his case to the rest of the party that he is still a viable candidate.
