Christie’s departure should give Haley a chance in New Hampshire. Will it be enough?

Eight years ago, Chris Christie gave Donald J. Trump the biggest political endorsement of the 2016 campaign.

Just days before the New Hampshire primary, he took a rousing Marco Rubio out of the debate. In doing so, he ensured that the Republican mainstream would be divided and allowed Trump to regain his position with a victory after a loss in Iowa.

Mr. Trump will not receive the same favor again.

On Wednesday, Mr Christie withdrew from the race. Whatever his intentions, by withdrawing he has essentially done what he failed to do eight years ago: avoided a mainstream conservative with moderate appeal, in this case Nikki Haley, who is heading for the New Hampshire primaries.

In the most recent polls she is reached approximately 30 percent of the New Hampshire vote. It was a count that put her within striking distance of Mr Trump and even made victory conceivable. But she was still about twelve percentage points behind, and her path to victory remained quite narrow.

Now Mr. Christie is out of the race, those 12 points no longer seem so difficult. He has had about 10 percent of the vote in New Hampshire for months, and Ms. Haley and Mr. Trump would be effectively tied in New Hampshire if her support were hypothetically combined with Mr. Christie’s.

According to FiveThirtyEight As of Wednesday evening, support for Ms. Haley and Mr. Christie stood at 41.5 percent of the vote in New Hampshire, compared to 42.4 percent for Mr. Trump.

Of course, not all of Mr. Christie’s voters will support Ms. Haley. But in this particular case, there is good reason to think that the majority of his voters will actually rally behind her.

Mr Christie is the only outspoken anti-Trump candidate and, unsurprisingly, his supporters are the most likely to be anti-Trump. In a CNN/UNH poll this week, 65 percent of Mr. Christie’s supporters said Ms. Haley was their second choice. In a CBS/YouGov survey Last month, 75 percent of Christie’s supporters in New Hampshire said they would consider Ms. Haley. Only 9 percent said they would consider Trump.

With these numbers, Ms. Haley’s path to victory isn’t like hitting a straight inside – it’s fairly simple. No, the Christie vote alone probably won’t be enough. But she has been steadily rising in the polls, and historically there are many precedents for surging candidates to continue winning — especially during the final days of an election. With Trump only having 42 percent of the vote, there is no reason to think her path is closed.

Of course, a Haley victory in New Hampshire wouldn’t jeopardize Trump’s path to the nomination. Even Mr. Christie doesn’t seem optimistic about her chances; he was heard on a hot mic Wednesday saying, “She’s going to get smoked,” presumably referring to Ms. Haley, and he did not support her.

Its appeal is concentrated among highly educated and moderate voters, who represent an outsized share of the New Hampshire electorate. She also relies on the support of registered independents; in some other major primaries they are not eligible to vote. In 2016, moderate candidates who weren’t going anywhere nationally — John Kasich, Mr. Christie and Jeb Bush – for 34 percent of the vote in New Hampshire. If you add the 11 percent of Mr. Rubio, a mainstream conservative, that amounts to 45 percent of the votes that went to establishment candidates. In other words, this state is not representative of the Republican electorate.

But this time, voters who supported these moderate Republicans will have the opportunity to rally behind a single candidate and deliver a blow to Mr. Trump. The fallout could prove mostly symbolic: a rare Republican rebuke of Mr. Trump and a reminder that the Republican Party’s old mainstream still needs to be reckoned with.

But there is a chance, albeit a slim one, that a Haley win in New Hampshire could prove more important. Mr. Trump will face criminal trials in the coming months. Although it seems extremely unlikely today, an erosion of his dominant aura could make him slightly more vulnerable once a lawsuit gets underway.