Former Latest Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speaks with reporters outside the Child Rights Protection Center in Kyiv, Ukraine, Aug. 4, 2023.
Efrem Lukatsky | AP
Former Latest Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Friday met with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a surprise trip to Kyiv.
The unannounced travel was revealed as Christie, a longshot candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, seemed to be making headway in the important thing primary state of Latest Hampshire, based on a recent poll.
Christie met with Zelenskyy on the presidential palace, where he reiterated his support for increasing U.S. aid to Ukraine — a view that distinguishes him from a few of his GOP primary competitors, including former president Donald Trump.
“I’m an advocate for there being more aid to Ukraine, more substantial aid to Ukraine,” Christie said based on a pool report, adding that he wanted “to make it easier to win the war.”
Christie also visited Moshchun and Bucha, the positioning of a reported Russian massacre of Ukrainian civilians that sharply amplified international condemnation of Moscow’s invasion of its European neighbor.
Christie shook hands with Bucha Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk before visiting the positioning of a mass burial, the pool reported. Russia has been accused of war crimes in reference to the deaths of greater than 1,000 civilians within the town.
Christie, who jumped into the presidential race in June, quickly established himself as probably the most aggressively anti-Trump Republican within the running. But while his message has cut through the fray, most national polls of the race have shown him stuck within the low- to mid-single digits.
But the previous Latest Jersey governor has focused his campaign squarely on Latest Hampshire, and that strategy could also be paying off, no less than based on one recent poll, which put him in third within the Granite State behind Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The Manhattan Institute‘s survey of 704 Latest Hampshire likely primary voters, conducted last month, found 11% of those respondents would pick Christie within the GOP primary. That is just two percentage points below DeSantis, throughout the poll’s margin of error of 4%.
Thirty-four percent of the Latest Hampshire Republicans selected Trump, based on the poll.
Christie’s campaign says it has qualified him to take part in the primary Republican debate, set for Aug. 23, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.