The pressure’s rising on Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie to drop out of the White House race ahead of the New Hampshire primary to give rival Nikki Haley a boost as she aims to close the gap with former President Donald Trump, the commanding front-runner.

But Christie, a scathing Trump critic who’s making his second bid for his party’s presidential nomination, doesn’t appear to be budging.

As he did during his 2016 White House run, Christie is once again staking his campaign on a strong finish in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary and second overall contest in the GOP nominating calendar following Iowa’s caucuses.

Christie arrived back in New Hampshire on Tuesday as two new polls in the Republican primary race each indicated him with 12% support among likely GOP primary voters, in third place far behind Trump and Haley.

The former two-term New Jersey governor, who’s considered one of the best communicators in the Republican Party, has rejected recent calls from party insiders and voters at his town halls to end his campaign and back Haley to solidify the anti-Trump vote.

At his first campaign stop this week, a town hall in Rochester, Christie was asked by a voter about the need to unify around a single anti-Trump candidate.

“I would be happy to get out of the way for someone who is actually running against Donald Trump,” said Christie, who has repeatedly criticized Haley and another top rival – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – for not being aggressive enough in their criticism of the former president.

Christie pointed to her comments that if she’s elected to the White House, she would support pardoning Trump if he is convicted in one of his numerous trials.

Christie and DeSantis have also repeatedly criticized Haley for not flat-out saying she’d refuse to serve as Trump's vice presidential nominee if offered the chance.

“Let’s say I dropped out of the race right now and I supported Nikki Haley. And then three months from now, four months from now, when you’re ready to go to the convention, she comes out as his vice president,” Christie said. “What will I look like? What will all the people who supported her at my behest look like?” 

Christie also reiterated that he will stay in the 2024 race as long as he sees a path to the nomination and that he won’t make an endorsement based on politics like he did in 2016 when Christie was the first of Trump’s rivals to support him.

“I’m not going to make the same mistake again,” Christie emphasized. “Can’t do it.”

Christie has argued that it’s far from a sure shot that his supporters would back Haley if he suspended his campaign.

“You saw all these people tonight who don’t want me out of this race. They want to vote for me. And I suspect a lot of these people here, if I dropped out, wouldn’t vote at all, because she’s unwilling to take Trump on,” Christie told reporters following a town hall in Hollis last week, as he pointed toward Haley.

Yet one of the two polls released on Tuesday, from the University of New Hampshire Survey Center and CNN, suggests that nearly two-thirds of those supporting Christie would vote for Haley if he wasn’t in the race.

Christie has a full schedule this week in New Hampshire, as he and his team basically camp out in the Granite State through primary day. With the rest of his major rivals in Iowa ahead of Monday’s caucuses, he basically has the presidential campaign trail in New Hampshire to himself for the next few days.

But Christie and his inner political circle will have to hold some hard conversations if any of the leading rivals drop out of the race after Iowa’s caucuses.

How big is Trump’s NH lead?

Trump remains the frontrunner in New Hampshire, with Haley firmly in second place.

But the big question with under two weeks to go until the primary on Jan. 23, is the size of that lead.

Two polls released on Tuesday paint very different pictures.

The UNH/CNN survey shows Haley within striking distance of Trump, with the former president Trump standing at 39% among those likely to vote in New Hampshire’s Republican presidential primary, with Haley at 32%. The poll of 1,864 New Hampshire voters likely to cast a ballot in the state’s Republican presidential primary was conducted online from Jan. 4 to Jan. 8.

A Suffolk University/Boston Globe/USA Today survey also released on Tuesday indicates Trump holding a 19-point lead over Haley, 46% to 27%. The survey of 1,000 voters was conducted by live operators on landlines and mobile phones from Jan. 3-7.

Haley, a former two-term South Carolina governor who later served as ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, has soared in recent months, thanks in part to her well-regarded performances in the first three Republican presidential primary debates and a few key endorsements.

Over the past month, Haley has caught up with DeSantis in the latest Iowa polls for a distant second place behind Trump in that state.

Haley has surged to second place and narrowed the gap with Trump in New Hampshire. Helping to boost Haley in New Hampshire, where independent voters play a crucial role in the state’s storied primary, is popular GOP Gov. Chris Sununu, who backed her last month and has repeatedly joined her on the campaign trail in both the Granite State and Iowa.

Both polls have Christie in third place – at 12%. DeSantis and multimillionaire entrepreneur and first-time candidate Vivek Ramaswamy stand in the single digits in both surveys.

“The race among Republicans is over. Every single poll that comes out is consistent if you look at the crosstabs,” longtime New Hampshire-based GOP strategist Michael Dennehy told the Monitor, as he pointed to Trump’s dominance among registered Republican voters.

“The race comes down to independents and whether or not Nikki Haley can motivate enough undeclared voters to come out and overpower Donald Trump’s strength among Republicans,” said Dennehy, a veteran of numerous Republican presidential campaigns.

Jim Merrill, another seasoned New Hampshire-based Republican consultant and presidential campaign veteran, said the race is far from over.

“Regardless of the poll, I think the underlying message is that Nikki Haley is still on the move in New Hampshire, and she is the one candidate in the race who has a chance to knock off Donald Trump,” Merrill said. “She’s within striking distance with two weeks to go.”