Wades into Senate impeachment fight

Chris Christie wades into Senate impeachment fight

The former New Jersey governor is launching an outside group to give Senate Republicans air cover ahead of an expected trial early next year.

By ALEX ISENSTADT

Chris Christie is launching a big-money effort aimed at giving Senate Republicans air cover on impeachment — and positioning the former New Jersey governor as a counterweight to liberal billionaire Tom Steyer.

The newly formed issue advocacy organization, Right Direction America, is set to begin a seven-figure TV and digital advertising offensive Monday. The nonprofit group will be focused on a half-dozen states where key 2020 Senate races are taking place: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Maine and North Carolina.

Christie is looking to offset a multimillion-dollar offensive funded by Steyer, a Democratic presidential candidate and hedge fund executive, who is targeting Senate Republicans over impeachment. Steyer’s organization, Need to Impeach, has spent around $3.5 million across a handful of states pressuring GOP senators. Need to Impeach has also begun a $350,000 national TV ad campaign going after House and Senate Republicans on impeachment, and a spokesman for Steyer’s group said the funding would likely increase as the Senate trial gets underway.

While conservative groups poured millions into TV advertising in House districts during the impeachment push, Steyer’s offensive in Senate battlegrounds has gone largely unanswered. Christie said he aimed to change that.

“I really think there has been a lack of attention on the positive things the administration has done for the country and a tremendous amount of attention on the negativity, particularly from groups like Tom Steyer’s impeachment group. And I’ve always tried to get the other part of the story out there to the people, and I was tired of sitting around and waiting for someone else to do it,” said Christie, who will serve as chairman of Right Direction America.

Christie is being aided in the effort by Phil Cox, a veteran GOP strategist who served as executive director of the Republican Governors Association when Christie chaired the organization. Cox spearheaded a pro-Christie super PAC during the 2016 presidential campaign.

“We were sitting around bemoaning the fact that none of this stuff was being done, particularly in some really important states, and we finally just decided to stop griping about it and to start doing something about it because of us have experience in being able to see groups like this come together and be able to advocate for a particular agenda,” Christie said.

Christie said he had not spoken about the new advocacy organization with Trump. He left open the possibility that the organization would embark on additional efforts in the months to come.

Right Direction America represents Christie’s first foray into the outside group sphere. The former governor has been a high-profile figure since leaving office in early 2018, taking to the cable TV circuit and publishing an autobiography entitled “Let Me Finish.” For a time, he was seen as a potential White House chief of staff.

He has also begun dipping into 2020 races, recently hosting a fundraiser for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.).

The project is partly geared toward winning over suburban voters who’ve become alienated from Trump’s GOP. While much of the party’s impeachment-focused advertising has echoed the president’s slash-and-burn messaging — a pro-Trump super PAC, for example, has savaged Democrats for embarking on a “witch hunt” — Right Direction America’s is somewhat milder tonally and is geared toward those who’ve become tired of partisanship.

The commercial airing in Maine, for example, contends that Democrats failed to follow through on their campaign promises and instead focused on “investigations and impeachment.”