Christie's Complete NH Concession Remarks

We came to New Hampshire to bring a message. That there is nothing more than the safety and security of the American people and that the next president of the United States must pay much more attention to that than the current one has. We came to New Hampshire to say that the government needs to once again work for the people, not the people work for the government. We came here to say that education should not put our children in debt the next 20 or 30 years of their life and we have to do better than that as a country for the next generation. We came to say that for our seniors that someone needs to stand up and fix the social security system and fix the Medicare system so that it doesn’t fail them or bankrupt our country. And we came here to say, that speaking your mind matters, that experience matters, that competence matters and that it will always matter in leading our nation. 

That message was heard by a lot of folks and it was stood for by a lot of folks here in New Hampshire, just not enough, not enough tonight, and that’s ok. For the people who have known me for a long time, and there are a lot of folks in this room who have, I have both won elections that I was supposed to lose and I’ve lost elections I was supposed to win and what that means is you never know and it is both the magic and the mystery of politics that you never quite know when which is going to happen, even when you think you do. 

And so, we leave New Hampshire today without an ounce of regret, not for the time we’ve spent and for the thousands of people tonight in New Hampshire who will have voted for us. We thank each and every one of them for the confidence that that vote represents in us as people and in us as servants. You know, Governor Larry Hogan, Governor Paul LePage, Governor Charlie Baker, are all people who understand both the burden and the opportunity of having the final decision to make in a place like a state and I’m so proud, so proud to have their support for president of the United States because for folks who actually know what it’s like to make a decision and be held accountable for it, to have their support has been an extraordinary display of loyalty and friendship. And so, to Governor Hogan who is here and Governor LePage and Governor Baker who I know are watching, I thank them for their friendship, their camaraderie, their understanding and their love.

I want to congratulate Donald Trump on his victory tonight here in New Hampshire. No, no, listen, winning is never easy and no one’s ever given victory and the people of New Hampshire Republican party tonight have spoken very clearly that Mr. Trump is their preference in this election and he deserves congratulations for that. The race will continue down the road to South Carolina and then other states as we move forward but for New Hampshire they have chosen their candidate tonight and he deserves congratulations for that and he has both my and Mary Pat’s congratulations to he and Melania and their family on their victory tonight.

Mary Pat and I spoke tonight and we’ve decided that we’re going to go home to New Jerseytonight and we’re going to take a deep breath, see what the final results are tonight, because that matters, whether we’re sixth or fifth, and exactly how all the votes will be counted because so many New Hampshire residents came to vote today it may take a while to count these votes, so we want to see exactly what happens. And so we’re going to go home to New Jersey to wait, by tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon we should know what the vote count is and that will allow us to make a decision about how we move from here in this race. But, there is no reason to go and sit in South Carolina in a hotel room to hear that. We’ll go home. We haven’t been home for two weeks. So we can actually get a change of clothes, which would be a nice thing. So we will go home to New Jerseytomorrow morning. We will make a decision on the next step forward based upon the results that come in here completed here in New Hampshire. 

But, on behalf of Mary Pat and Andrew, Sarah and Patrick and Bridget we want to thank all of you for your friendship, for your support, for your love, for your confidence, and for your encouragement. We also thank the rest of our family who is here. My dad and his wife Fran, my brother Todd, and my younger sister Dawn who I know is watching at home and knows that I feel her love as I’m standing up here, the way I always do. So to our friends our supporters we have much work still to do, and I am looking forward to doing that work and continuing to move forward our agenda for the nation and for the state that I serve. And we will continue to do both over the course of time. 

We thank our staff, all the members of the Christie campaign, the campaign who did more with less than any campaign in America. That means the folks who ran the campaign – Maria Comella and Ken McKay the folks – yeah, sure, you can applaud for them. Our National Finance Chairman Ray Washburne. And the guy who knows more about New Hampshire than any guy from New Jersey I’ve ever met in my life, Matt Mowers. I was thrilled to have him as a member of my team since 2009 and I hope he always continues to be one, so to the people of New Hampshire and to the people of our country who are watching tonight, I say thank you for your confidence, your support, for your taking the time to listen, to the things that we’ve had to say. 

You know me, I won’t stop talking. I will continue to speak out about the issues that I care about, we will continue to work really hard together. And we will move down the road from here based upon the results tonight in what is best, in this order – for my family, for my state, and for my country. I thank you all very much.