Could Chris Christie Reshape the 2024 Race?

He might not win, but GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie could make his presence felt early in his party's primaries for president next year.

Since announcing his bid for the White House in early June, the former New Jersey governor and unsuccessful presidential candidate in 2016 has gone from a punchline for skeptics to a strong performer in several early state polls, all while running on a platform based almost exclusively on attacking front-runner Donald Trump's viability in the general election.

A recent Saint Anselm College poll of 1,035 registered New Hampshire voters, for example, found Christie polling third in the crowded field of GOP candidates. He won the preference of 6 percent of the respondents, compared with Trump's 47 percent and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' 19 percent.

This was a marked increase from where he stood in the college's previous poll, in March, when a prospective Christie candidacy drew just 1 percent of the New Hampshire respondents' support. Trump polled at 42 percent, DeSantis at 29 percent and New Hampshire's moderate Republican governor, Chris Sununu, was at 14 percent, before announcing in June he was not running.

Another poll, of 809 likely 2024 primary voters in the early-voting state of South Carolina, was released Wednesday by National Public Affairs. The survey showed Christie at 5 percent, in his first appearance as a candidate in the pollster's figures for the GOP primaries.

Some speculate that Christie's entry into the race will help Trump more than hurt him. Christie's 5 percent polling performance in South Carolina coincided with a 5 percentage point drop for DeSantis in the state, based on where he stood in the pollster's previous survey, in May. But Christie has shown a proven ability to crush opponents he perceives as vulnerable.

In 2016, Christie unsheathed a scathing attack against opponent Marco Rubio in a debate ahead of the 2016 New Hampshire primaries. Afterward, internal polls from other candidates like John Kasich showed Rubio's support cratering, and he fell from second place in the polls to fourth place.

Christie has taken a similar tack in this race. He has regularly criticized Trump as a candidate who failed to win the popular vote two election cycles in a row, as well as a potential nominee who leave the GOP spinning its wheels in a contest against President Joe Biden.

"I think Christie can play a significant role in this campaign," Thomas Rath, a former Republican attorney general in New Hampshire and a longtime politico in the state, told Newsweek. "He is the only one who forcefully says that the emperor is underdressed. New Hampshire pays attention early, and that message may be forceful here."

History and polling, however, suggest that could be wishful thinking. In the lead-up to the 2012 Republican primary in New Hampshire, a divided Republican field largely failed to steal support from front-runner Mitt Romney, despite coordinated attacks on his wealth and relatability. A former Massachusetts governor, Romney won an easy victory even though he earned just 39 percent of the vote.

Meanwhile, as more GOP candidates have entered the nomination race, Trump's popularity within the party has remained stable at nearly 50 percent nationwide while the others fight for shares of the other half of Republican voters willing to consider someone else.

Just like in 2016, Trump appears poised to ride that division in the party to victory, according to Neil Levesque, director of Saint Anselm's New Hampshire Institute of Politics.

"At this early stage of the presidential primaries, voters seem intent on seeing a rematch of the 2020 election," he wrote in a summary of the most recent poll results.