Allies of Chris Christie’s 2024 Republican presidential campaign are telling New Hampshire Democrats that they don’t have to wait until the November 2024 presidential election to vote against Donald Trump.

But two political groups backing Christie who are courting Granite State Democrats to cast a ballot in support of the former two-term New Jersey governor and against the former president in the state’s upcoming lead-off primary are almost out of time.

Friday is the deadline for New Hampshire voters to change their registration ahead of next year’s presidential primary.

The two political groups supporting Christie’s second Republican White House run have been sending mailers to registered Democrats in the state that holds the first primary and second overall contest in the GOP presidential nominating calendar. And they’ve been running targeted digital ads.

They’re wooing Democrats by highlighting that Christie is the only Republican presidential candidate “willing to take Trump on” and urging them to “make sure” the former president “never sees the inside of the Oval Office again.”

The mailers by the Christie-aligned super PAC Tell It Like It Is and the digital spots by the until now under-the-radar nonprofit policy organization American Leadership Today explain that Democrats can “switch parties by October 6 and VOTE in the Republican Primary. It’s easy to switch your party affiliation back after!”

And the narrator in the digital ad warns that “in New Hampshire on a cold January night, democracy will be on the ballot.”

Seven years ago, Christie placed all his chips in his first bid for president in New Hampshire. However, his campaign crashed and burned after a disappointing and distant sixth-place finish in New Hampshire, far behind Trump, who crushed the competition in the primary, boosting him toward the Republican nomination and eventually the White House.

Christie became the first among the other GOP 2016 contenders to endorse Trump and for years was a top outside adviser to the then-president and chaired Trump’s high-profile commission on opioids. However, the two had a falling out after Trump’s unsuccessful attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Biden. In the past two and a half years, Christie has become one of the harshest Trump critics in the Republican Party.

Christie – who is considered one of the best communicators in the GOP and was known during his tenure as Garden State governor for the kind of in-your-face politics that Trump has also mastered – has repeatedly touted that he’s got the chops to take down Trump.

The former president remains the commanding front-runner for the Republican nomination as he makes his third straight White House run, even as he’s juggling a historic four criminal indictments, including two for attempting to overturn the 2020 election results.

As he runs for the White House a second time, Christie is once again concentrating his efforts in New Hampshire. He’s seen his poll numbers rise in Granite State over the summer, but he and the rest of the field of contenders remain far behind Trump in the latest surveys.

This week’s mailers and digital ads are the latest evidence that Christie is banking on support from independents and Democrats who loathe Trump and are deeply concerned about the prospects of the former president returning to the White House.

A spokesperson for American Leadership Today said in a statement that the group’s “goal is spreading awareness about available choices through a multi-faceted campaign and expanding voter participation in the Granite State’s proud First In The Nation primary process.”

Christie, during a stop in New Hampshire last month at a town hall in North Hampton, offered that he was “uncomfortable with the idea of asking people to change their party. Because I think that’s something that’s very personal for them to decide.”

But he urged eligible voters “should go out and vote and vote for the person that they think will make a difference.”

With a likely uncompetitive Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire, there’s the belief that the state’s large pool of independent, or undeclared, voters will cast ballots in the GOP contest.

“What we’ve seen in the polling is that Trump’s support has remained solid among Republican primary voters. So, if you can’t have Trump’s number decline, you have to find new voters. And those new voters could be undeclared or independents, but they could also be Democrats who decide to switch to undeclared and potentially take a ballot in the Republican presidential primary,” New Hampshire Institute of Politics executive director Neil Levesque told Fox News.

But he noted that “it’s a difficult thing to convince somebody to change their registration, which entails physically going to their town hall to make that change, in an effort to vote against a candidate.”

“Who knows – it could make a difference in a tight election. But in the past we haven’t seen that it’s really been a factor,” Levesque noted.

Poll position in NH

Trump retains his very formidable lead over his rivals for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination in the latest poll in New Hampshire.

A Suffolk University survey for USA Today and the Boston Globe, however, is the second to show former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who served as ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, vaulting into second place, ahead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

According to the poll, Trump stands at 49% support among likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire, the state that holds the first primary and second overall contest in the GOP presidential nominating calendar.

Haley stands at 19% support in the survey, with DeSantis dropping to third place at 10%. Christie registers at 6% in the poll, with everyone else in the large field of Republican presidential contenders in the low single digits.

The Suffolk University survey was conducted entirely after the second Republican presidential nomination debate, which was held Sept. 27 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

The poll, which was released Wednesday, is the second to indicate Haley surging into second place, following a Saint Anselm College survey conducted last month. And other recent polls in the Granite State from CBS News and the University of New Hampshire for CNN also showed Haley rising into double digits.

David Paleologos, the director of Suffolk’s Political Research Center, predicted that “this likely means more money, credibility and interviews will find their way to Haley. More importantly, a case will be made for others to drop out now and back Haley’s challenge to former president Trump.”

But Paleologos noted that Trump’s still in the driver’s seat. “Add in second-choice votes from all the other major candidates – even if they all endorsed Haley – and Trump sits above 55%,” he pointed out.

Haley has been holding a slew of town halls and other campaign events in New Hampshire, as well as Iowa – whose caucuses lead off the GOP nominating calendar – and her home state of South Carolina, which holds the first southern primary.

Haley stands in second place to Trump in the latest polls in South Carolina and has seen her support edge up in the most recent surveys in Iowa.

Trump back to N.H.

The former president returns to New Hampshire on Monday for his first visit in two months.

Trump will headline a campaign event at the Kingswood Art Center in Wolfeboro. Don’t be surprised if the former president makes another stop after his event in Wolfeboro.

It’s Trump’s first trip back to New Hampshire since headlining an event at Windham’s high school on Aug. 8.

While the former president hasn’t spent nearly as much time in the Granite State compared to his rivals for the GOP nomination, Trump campaign senior adviser in New Hampshire Steve Stepanek tells this reporter their get-out-the-vote efforts are “in really good shape.”

“We are miles ahead of everyone else,” Stepanek, a former state representative and 2016 Trump campaign co-chair in New Hampshire who went on to chair the NHGOP until early this year, touted. “We’ve been doing a ton of door knocking, a ton of phone calls….Getting a huge response, especially on the doors.”

The Trump campaign announced their New Hampshire grassroots leadership team in late June. It included 10 county chairs, 4 city chairs, and over 200 town chairs.

Stepanek highlighted that the campaign’s been doing “regularly organized flag waves and car caravans.”

“We’ll over 10,000 yard signs have been handed out, to be stuck in the ground outside somebody’s house,” he added. “We’ve been doing all the county fairs, all the old home days….we’ve been just hammering it as far as grassroots is concerned.”

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