When showman billionaire Donald Trump declared victory in the bulk of Super Tuesday GOP primaries tonight, the optics were quite unusual. His opening political act was New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who also stood by his side during Trump’s press conference, which was set up to look as if it was coming from a White House setting. Christie shocked many in New Jersey by coming out for Trump and some analysts say he undercut Republican establishment attempts to stop Trump, since Christie is a former head of the GOP governor’s association.
Now six Gannett newspapers in New Jersey are calling on him to resign:
Six New Jersey newspapers issued a joint editorial Tuesday calling on Gov. Chris Christie to resign in the wake of his failed presidential campaign and his subsequent endorsement of rival Donald Trump.
The six newspapers including the Asbury Park Press, the Cherry Hill Courier-Post and the Morristown Daily Record — all Gannett-owned papers that are part of the USA TODAY NETWORK — were apparently spurred to editorial outrage by a Monday press conference in which Christie refused to answer questions about anything other than his nomination of a state Supreme Court judge. Asked why, Christie replied, “Because I don’t want to.”
“We’re fed up with Gov. Chris Christie’s arrogance,” the papers wrote. “We’re fed up with his opportunism. We’re fed up with his hypocrisy.”
The joint editorial notes that Christie spent part of 261 days out of state last year and traveled out of state to endorse Trump and campaign with him after he quit the race Feb. 10.
And now he’ll be gone on the road more, to campaign with Trump.
Christie should hope Trump wins: he’ll be political poison for any office where New Jersey voters would have to elect him. His poll numbers are near the South Pole in his home state.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.