In a surprise move, former Governor Chris Christie on Wednesday night dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, making the announcement at a town hall in New Hampshire filled with his campaign supporters.

Just days before the first in the nation Iowa caucuses on January 15th, Christie's bid for the White House largely centered on stopping former President Donald Trump from reclaiming the seat.

But he failed to gain real traction after entering the Republican primary.

His stunning announcement got overshadowed a bit by a hot mic moment that went out over the live feed where Christie slammed rival Nikki Haley saying, quote, She's going to get smoked.

Matt Arco is a reporter for NJ Advance Media who's been on the campaign trail with Christie and joins me from New Hampshire.

Matt, everyone's talking about this as an abrupt ending to the campaign because as you reported, not even 24 hours before this, Christie had said he wouldn't suspend his bid.

So what happened?

Look, I think the math finally caught up when I was talking to folks after he announced that he was suspending his campaign, it was clear that this is something that they'd been talking about kicking around for a few weeks.

This idea that, hey, do we really have a winnable path here?

And that more recently, just over the weekend, their internal polling showed what the public polling showed, which was, you know, at best, he was probably going to have a third place finish in New Hampshire.

And they did the math on what they were going to do after that.

And it wasn't a bright picture, given his high unfavorables in the Republican primary among the Republican electorate.

Yeah, I mean, that same polling showed Nikki Haley edging upward.

So does this now clear the path for her?

Does it at least appear that way?

It depends on which poll you want to look at.

But there is and part of the reason that he explained that he dropped out and that folks are talking about is that if he was in there, since they're running in the same lane, he would be drawing votes away from Nikki Haley.

Vice versa.

So with him out, his campaign now says or would say yesterday that they didn't want him to be a scapegoat for Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis.

So pollsters here in New Hampshire say that, yeah, naturally, at least a portion of those Christie supporters will go to Nikki Haley.

Now, depending on which poll here you believe, is that enough to put her above Trump?

One poll would say yes.

Another poll would say no.

So it's it's still a waiting game.

All right.

Got to ask you about this moment as the live stream had started, but Christie had not yet walked out on stage and everyone heard it.

It seemed as though he was referring to, of course, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley.

What did he say?

And how does this change now, the dynamic around who he might endorse, if anyone?

You know, I don't on an endorsement.

I didn't really get the sense that you didn't have a lot of nice things to say about Nikki Haley just in the hours leading up to him dropping out.

But, yes, I mean, if he was dropping out with a stated goal of not being a spoiler for Trump to get caught on a hot mike saying that Nikki Haley doesn't have a chance and everyone knows it, and then there's sort of Ron DeSantis, they assume he was going to say it was petrified, calling him petrified.

Maybe I thought that maybe he thought that it cut off that, but maybe he thought that Ryan was worried that he was going to endorse Haley.

So it sort of undercuts your your stated goal if you don't want to be a spoiler.

And then the the immediate story afterwards is what happened is that the hot mike where he's saying, you know, this person that I'm essentially dropping out for because everyone's telling me to be a spoiler, I'm saying that she doesn't have a chance.

So it wasn't I'm sure it was a staffer that he wasn't pleased with after that.

Yeah, I can imagine so.

All right.

Christie also said that his voice isn't going anywhere.

Obviously, he's been the most vocal critic of Trump.

How so?

How should we expect his voice to continue in this race that he's no longer a part of?

Look, he's been up to this point a darling on TV.

So I imagine that folks will still want to come for interviews.

Does he go back to ABC News as an ally and analyst as he tried to, you know, pick up a show on on a network?

I mean, I have to imagine that he's, you know, licking his wounds at the moment.

But, you know, the Chris Christie that we've known for all these years isn't going to shy away.

And as the election really ramps up, I don't think he'll have much trouble getting booked on any any network.

He's been doing it for four months now, so I'm sure there will still be that added appetite for it.

Yeah, twice.

Tried twice.

Didn't make it.

Matt Arco is a reporter for NJ dot com NJ Advance Media.

Who writes the newsletter?

What makes Christie run?

Which I guess we can answer now.

Matt, thank you so much.

Thanks, Brooke.