Tuesday, January 5, 2016

First Read: Chris Christie Becomes Top Target for Rivals in New Hampshire

 
First Read is a morning briefing from Meet the Press and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why they matter.
 
Rivals pounce on Christie in New Hampshire

A funny thing has happened in a Republican presidential race dominated by Donald Trump and (to a lesser extent) Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio: Chris Christie -- who's stuck in single digits in national polls -- has become the target in New Hampshire. Just look at all of the TV ads in the Granite State, as NBC's Kailani Koenig and Alex Jaffe have observed. John Kasich's Super PAC has whacked Christie over New Jersey's budget deficit; Jeb Bush's Right to Rise Super PAC jabbed the New Jersey governor (as well as Kasich); and yesterday, Marco Rubio's Super PAC threw the kitchen sink at Christie. "One high-tax, Common Core, liberal-energy loving, Obamacare-Medicaid-expanding president is enough," the Rubio Super PAC ad goes. Bottom line: It seems that the groups backing the other candidates in the Establishment Lane -- Bush, Kasich, Rubio -- see Christie as a threat in New Hampshire, where the New Jersey governor is polling higher than his national average. The challenge for Christie is whether or not he has the money to fight back. While the Super PAC supporting him has spent nearly $9 million over the airwaves (almost all in New Hampshire), his campaign had just $1.4 million in the bank as of Sept. 30. And our hunch is that Christie's financial situation didn't improve from October to December. Will the New York money crowd that pined for Christie four years ago come to the rescue? 

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Source: NBC News

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