The former New Jersey governor and two-time White House contender, Chris Christie, has officially ended his presidential campaign at a town hall at Windham, New Hampshire. He has said he will not endorse a candidate before the Iowa caucuses on Monday. 

“From the beginning, we’ve been in this race to tell the truth,” Mr. Christie said to dozens of supporters in the room. “Unlike some of the other candidates, we’re fighting for something bigger than ourselves.”

The most likely beneficiary of Mr. Christie’s departure will be the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, Nikki Haley, who is running a particularly strong race against President Trump and the other candidates in New Hampshire. 

Mr. Christie, according to recent polling, was in third place at 12 percent in New Hampshire, with Mr. Trump at 39 percent and Mrs. Haley at 32 percent. The two other major candidates, Governor DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, are in the single digits, according to a recent CNN poll. 

Mr. Christie made his 2024 campaign about one thing: Mr. Trump. He said explicitly throughout his six-month-long run for the White House that Mr. Trump was an existential threat to the country, a liar, and an inciter of violence on January 6, 2021, who is likely to see the inside of a prison cell in the near future. 

“I’m the only one saying Donald Trump is a liar,” Mr. Christie said in a recent advertisement. “He pits Americans against each other. His Christmas message to anyone who disagrees with him: ‘Rot in hell.’ He caused a riot on Capitol Hill — he’ll burn America to the ground to help himself.”

“Every Republican leader says that in private,” he continued. “I’m the only one saying it in public.”

Mr. Christie remained close with Mr. Trump over the years, becoming one of the first major GOP figures to endorse him in 2016, and was later considered for a role in the Trump administration after the election. He also served as an advisor to Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign in 2020 and participated in debate preparation. It wasn’t until January 6, 2021, that he broke with the president. 

At his Wednesday event, he explained his support for Mr. Trump in 2016. “I let the ambition get ahead and in control of the decision-making, and after I figured that out, I promised myself and I promised my wife that I would never, ever do that again.”

The two men first met while Mr. Christie was serving as the United States attorney for New Jersey during President George W. Bush’s administration. He says his federal prosecutorial experience tells him that the former president is likely to be convicted on at least some charges in the next year. 

“He’s going to be convicted,” Mr. Christie told Fox News in October. “Imagine this: He’s our nominee, he won’t be able to vote for himself.”