“He has insulted Nikki Haley’s fundamental intelligence. Not her positions, her fundamental intelligence,” Christie mentioned Wednesday. “If you wish to disagree on points, that’s high-quality. And Nikki and I disagree on some points. … What we don’t disagree on is this can be a sensible, completed girl and you must cease insulting her.”
The group cheered.
However Christie didn’t solely defend Haley. In a while, throughout a phase about China and Taiwan, Christie jabbed Haley for saying Trump was good on commerce.
Christie’s back-and-forth strategy to Haley comes as she’s steadily risen within the polls following a sequence of robust debate performances.
In New Hampshire, the place Christie has staked his second White Home marketing campaign, it’s Haley who’s making the strongest declare as the primary contender in opposition to former President Donald Trump. She’s surged into second place in polls of probably GOP main voters. Christie, whereas additionally on the rise, trails behind her in third.
Voters throughout New Hampshire city halls for each candidates have instructed POLITICO they’re torn between the 2 former governors. However as Haley picks up steam within the first main state and in others, like Iowa, the place Christie shouldn’t be competing, and South Carolina, the place she holds a home-state benefit, voters in current weeks have more and more mentioned that they view Haley because the extra viable candidate.
In order the 2 vie for most of the identical voters — extra reasonable Republicans and independents who can solid ballots within the Granite State’s GOP main — Christie has retooled his stump speech, which was as soon as centered nearly fully on Trump, to attract contrasts with Haley, too.
At a city corridor in Harmony, New Hampshire, final week, Christie skewered Haley for saying days earlier at an evangelical gathering in Iowa that she would have signed a six-week abortion ban if it had reached her desk when she was governor of South Carolina.
“You can’t be a truth-teller and say one model of the reality in Iowa while you’re in entrance of a really conservative group, after which while you’re right here in New Hampshire, with a libertarian viewers, a ‘stay free or die’ viewers, you have got a distinct reply that you simply’ll assume they’ll like,” Christie mentioned.