Christie buries DeSantis’s hopes of surviving Iowa: ‘It’ll be me, Trump and Nikki’

Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie dashed any hope for challenger Ron DeSantis to make much headway with voters once the primary elections get underway, predicting the Florida governor’s campaign will begin to see a downturn after the Iowa caucuses next month.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Messenger, Christie offered a warning to his opponents as they enter the new year: Know when to quit. For DeSantis, Christie predicted it could come sooner rather than later — predicting the Iowa contest won’t even have the Florida governor as a top contender.

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“He’s got to do really well in Iowa or it’s time to go back to Tallahassee,” Christie told the outlet, referring to DeSantis. “We get here. It’ll be me, [Donald] Trump and Nikki [Haley]. We’ll see how it goes.”

The Iowa caucuses historically begin the primary election season and typically test each candidate’s viability and strength to receive the nomination. Although it’s not always the case, the winner of the Iowa caucuses usually sends a signal to voters in other states who the strongest candidates are and whose campaigns are dead on arrival. The implications of the Iowa caucuses are that influential candidates often drop their bids shortly after the contest if they don’t do well enough.

The Republican Iowa caucuses are set to take place on Jan. 15, just a little more than one month away. Trump has a significant lead in Iowa polls, garnering an average of 45.9% support among Republican voters in the state, according to data compiled by FiveThirtyEight. DeSantis comes in at a distant second with an average of 19.7% support, followed closely by Haley with 17.5%. Christie only has 3.9%.

Still, Christie predicts he still has strength in the Hawkeye State and beyond, indicating he doesn’t have plans to drop out anytime soon.

“I don’t look at the polling as being instructive at all, having gone through this in 2016,” he told the Messenger. “People just extrapolate these things from polls in a way that makes it too formulaic. Voters aren’t that way.”

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Still, the former governor says he has a voting threshold in mind for both Iowa and the New Hampshire primaries, telling the outlet if he doesn’t meet that number, he’ll suspend his campaign. However, he didn’t reveal what that exact number is.

“That’s for me to know. And believe me, you’ll see me react to it. It’s not like you don’t know what I will do. In 2016, I didn’t get to the number I wanted to get to and I dropped out the next day,” Christie said. “But I don’t think that’s gonna happen. I feel it when I’m out there now interacting with voters.”