Chris Christie Needs to Stand Down

The latest polling out of Iowa and New Hampshire has confirmed how slim the odds are that Donald Trump will somehow be denied the Republican nomination, but that’s no reason for candidates supposedly opposed to Trump acting to make it even easier for him to win.

Yes, we are looking at you, Chris Christie. (We’d also look at Asa Hutchinson, but he has not been seen in months.)

As things stand now, Christie could pull off a trick no one else would dare attempt — helping Trump win the nomination as a devoted supporter in 2016, and then turning around and helping him win the nomination as a fierce opponent in 2024.

Christie has been, as the cliché goes, running for “president of New Hampshire,” but since he’s a distant third, maybe it’s more accurate to say he’s been running for “speaker of the house of New Hampshire,” third-in-line in the succession. The former New Jersey governor has gotten some traction, hitting 14 percent in a recent poll, just several points behind Nikki Haley in second.