ELECTIONS

Would Chris Christie challenge Donald Trump and Joe Biden on a third-party ticket? Maybe.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie isn’t ruling out a third-party presidential bid with the bipartisan group No Labels.

Christie, who ended his 2024 GOP presidential campaign in January, said he would do “whatever” he could to make sure the country doesn’t go through “the misery of a second Trump term” during an appearance on the podcast “The Axe Files,’ hosted by former President Barack Obama advisor David Axelrod.

“I wouldn’t preclude anything at this point, David,” he said, in response to a direct question about whether he was considering a run. “I would just say that there are a number of hurdles to get over before I would actually consider running as a third party.”

No Labels, a centrist nonprofit organization, is searching for candidates to appear on a potential "unity" ticket in the November election. A number of high-profile officials have been tied to the group, including former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., but many have ruled out running on the group’s presidential push.

One of the main concerns surrounding the group is that it could act as a spoiler in the November general election and split the vote between President Joe Biden, 81, and former President Donald Trump, 77. The centrist think tank Third Way has criticized No Labels, arguing that its third-party ticket could hand the 2023 election to Trump.

But Christie, who is one of Trump's most vocal Republican critics, pushed back against those concerns.

“I don’t think you can game that out seven months before an election,” he said in the interview. Christie argued that Biden's age and Trump's legal sweeping legal charges already make the 2024 election unprecedented.

“Do I think it’s likely a third-party candidate could be elected president? No, I don’t think it’s likely,” he said. "Do I think it’s possible? In this environment, anything is possible.”

Christie’s openness to the possibility of a third-party run is a sharp departure from previous comments he's made about the option. Shortly before he dropped out of the GOP primary, Christie had outright rejected a No Labels run.

The former prosecutor decided to suspend his campaign for the Republican nomination in early January after finding that he did not have a feasible path to the nomination.

Trump is now the party’s presumptive nominee, racking up the necessary delegates in primaries and caucuses across the country ahead of the Republican convention this summer.