Struggling in the polls, Chris Christie, the only candidate in the Republican primaries who was unsparingly critical of Donald Trump, announced that he was throwing in the towel on Wednesday, January 10, a few days before the Iowa caucuses.

"Certainly, tonight there is no path for me to win the nomination" of the Republican Party for the White House, "so tonight I suspend my campaign for the presidency of the United States," he told supporters from Windham, New Hampshire.

The 61-year-old, a former governor of New Jersey, was once a supporter of Donald Trump but has since portrayed the billionaire as self-centered and dishonest.

He was so low in the polls that he did not meet the criteria set by the party to participate in Wednesday's debate.

Trump, frontrunner in Republican primaries

The last two Republicans in the race with Donald Trump, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, will try to present themselves as the best alternative to the big favorite in a televised face-off on Wednesday.

They're playing a bit of a double-whammy game in this final debate before Iowa voters choose on Jan. 15. Because a good election performance on Monday, in the state of Iowa where the stakes are high, would serve as a springboard for them to hope to catch Donald Trump and thwart the odds.

Read alsoUS presidential election: Nikki Haley, Donald Trump's rival, bets on "electoral dynamics"

The billionaire once again chose to snub the debate, believing he had too big a lead and had nothing to gain by exposing himself to a possible barrage of criticism. But he has again taken care to organize a counter-programming, with a campaign event in the same city broadcast by the conservative Fox News channel while his two rivals debate on CNN.

This attitude earned him a jab from his former ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, who said in a statement that "it is time for Donald Trump to show up". "As the field of debaters shrinks, it becomes harder for him to hide," the former South Carolina governor said.

Still, the former president is likely vindicated by a new poll (Suffolk University/USA TODAY) indicating that 51% of Republican voters do not plan to watch the debate, a sign that the proposed poster may lack a bit of flavor for their taste.

According to polling aggregator RealClearPolitics, Trump leads the way in Iowa with 52.3 percent of the vote, far ahead of Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis each around 16 percent. Nationally, the businessman is credited with 51.5%.

His lead is not weakening despite the legal proceedings against him, the timing of which is almost intertwined with that of the primaries. On the contrary, the tycoon has incorporated indictments and trials into his campaign strategy, even using his mugshot on mugs and T-shirts.

With AFP

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