Chris and Chris

Current New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu will not run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, while former New Jersey governor Chris Christie will.  And the reasons why are the same - Donald J. Trump.  

Sununu (above) is afraid that, with nine Republicans already challenging Trump in a winner-take-all primary and caucus system, he would just be one more person splitting the anti-Trump vote into smaller pieces.  He thinks he can use his success as governor of New Hampshire and his traditional conservative political philosophy (lower taxes, small government, screw the poor) to steer other Republicans away from Trump and possibly have an effect on his state's first-in-the-nation (for the GOP, anyway) primary.  

Christie (above), on the other hand, is taking Trump head-on in an effort to damage his comeback hopes and also convince others that Trump is a fraud, as well as someone who uses people for his own gains and demands loyalty from others without bestowing loyalty in return.  Christie knows this firsthand; despite being a friend of Trump for years before Trump entered the White House, Trump's cavalier dismissals of his advise and counsel and his failure to show any empathy for Christie when he got COVID and almost died left the former New Jersey governor embittered and angry.  He also escaped Trump's mind-control cult, and he now preaches against Trumpism the way Leah Remini preaches against her former religion of Scientology.   

The truth is, I'm afraid, that Sununu and Christie are likely to be ineffective in stopping Trump.  And for the same reason - Republican primary and caucus voters are so enthralled with Trump and his extreme and extremely inconsistent positions that he somehow finds a way to keep them coming back for more.  Like a slutty pop diva with no apparent singing talent, Trump becomes more popular as he displays more shallowness and tastelessness. Whatever lofty ideals Sununu and Christie may believe in that give them faith that they can restore the Republican Party to what it used to be before Trump came along (which wasn't all that much better than it is now), it's really too late for any of that.