Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who announced a second campaign for president on Tuesday after a disappointing run in 2016, has had a curler coaster of a political profession in additional methods than one.

In the span of 4 years, he went from star presidential recruit to scandal-dogged sixth-place finisher in New Hampshire. In the following seven, he went from serving as one in all Donald J. Trump’s most influential advisers to promoting himself as the one candidate courageous sufficient to denounce Mr. Trump to his face.

Here are 5 issues to find out about Mr. Christie.

He had a meteoric rise in his first time period as governor …

Mr. Christie first drew nationwide consideration in 2009, when he was elected governor of New Jersey over a Democratic incumbent, Jon Corzine.

He shortly notched legislative victories for Republicans in a Democratic-leaning state, together with passing a significant overhaul of New Jersey’s public worker pension system.

Making use of a tactic that’s now commonplace however was extra putting on the time, he additionally attacked critics at public occasions — in 2012, he instructed a legislation pupil who had heckled him that if “you conduct yourself like that in a courtroom, your rear end’s going to be thrown in jail, idiot.” His showmanship and combativeness made him interesting each to Republican voters and to get together operatives, who started urging him to run for president in 2012.

He didn’t, selecting as a substitute to give the keynote address for Mitt Romney on the Republican National Convention, change into the chairman of the Republican Governors Association and set up himself as an early front-runner for 2016.

His profile rose additional after his administration of the state’s restoration from Hurricane Sandy in 2012, when he famously welcomed President Barack Obama to New Jersey — a picture that infuriated some Republicans however helped cement Mr. Christie’s fame as somebody who might swap modes from assault canine to bipartisan statesman as wanted.

… and a ‘Bridgegate’-fueled crash in his second time period.

If Mr. Christie’s first time period as governor was politically triumphant, his second time period was politically calamitous due to a scandal that turned generally known as Bridgegate.

In September 2013, not lengthy earlier than Mr. Christie was up for re-election as governor, high-ranking officers on the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates bridges and tunnels between the 2 states, closed two of three lanes onto the George Washington Bridge from Fort Lee, N.J. The closings caused chaos.

The ostensible rationale was to check visitors patterns. But it quickly emerged {that a} Christie ally on the Port Authority had ordered the closings as a part of a scheme to punish the mayor of Fort Lee for not endorsing the governor’s re-election marketing campaign — and that he had carried out so after Mr. Christie’s deputy chief of workers emailed him, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” In a trial in 2016 in opposition to the deputy chief of workers and a Port Authority official, a witness testified that Mr. Christie himself had been instructed of the political motive for the closings whereas they have been taking place, and had laughed.

Mr. Christie denied involvement within the scandal, nevertheless it consumed his second time period and proved a serious liability in his first presidential marketing campaign. By the time he left workplace, he had the lowest approval rating recorded for any New Jersey governor.

His 2016 marketing campaign served to knock out Marco Rubio.

Mr. Christie first ran for president in 2016, a 12 months that made mincemeat of fairly a couple of Republicans seen as rising stars within the get together, and he was no exception.

He by no means gained a lot traction — in opposition to any of his opponents, a lot much less Mr. Trump — and got here in sixth within the New Hampshire major after focusing his efforts there. He dropped out the following day.

But Mr. Christie did have a big influence on the trajectory of the Republican race, simply to not his personal profit.

He helped pave the way in which for Mr. Trump’s nomination by wounding the person who had seemed to be his strongest opponent: Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.

In a debate in New Hampshire in early February, Mr. Christie went after Mr. Rubio mercilessly — accusing him of being inauthentic and counting on canned traces, a criticism Mr. Rubio lent credence to by responding with canned traces. (“There it is, everybody,” Mr. Christie replied.) The assault was so efficient that the controversy viewers started to boo Mr. Rubio.

He was a member of Trump’s internal circle for years …

After ending his personal marketing campaign, Mr. Christie shortly endorsed Mr. Trump, praising him for “rewriting the playbook of American politics.” His endorsement was an enormous deal provided that many of the Republican institution was nonetheless looking for anybody aside from Mr. Trump to coalesce round.

Mr. Christie became a highly influential adviser to the Trump marketing campaign. In characteristically combative trend, he defended Mr. Trump even when he went too far for different Republicans.

Implicit within the alliance was that Mr. Christie would get a high-ranking job within the Trump administration, maybe even the vice presidency. But whereas Mr. Trump selected him to guide his presidential transition workforce and provided him cupboard posts, Mr. Christie didn’t get the job he actually wished: legal professional common.

Even so, he stayed loyal, serving to Mr. Trump with debate preparation in 2020. He didn’t break free till Mr. Trump tried to overturn his election loss — at which level Mr. Christie started talking forcefully, including in a book.

… however has reinvented himself as Trump Enemy No. 1.

Mr. Christie is pitching himself as the one candidate keen to confront Mr. Trump head-on. (Though Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has begun to do that, different candidates largely haven’t, lest they alienate the pro-Trump Republican base.)

In a pre-campaign stop in New Hampshire in March, Mr. Christie tried to persuade voters that he was the person to do that by evoking his long-ago brawl with Mr. Rubio: “You better have somebody on that stage who can do to him what I did to Marco,” he stated.

Voters stay unconvinced. In a recent Monmouth University poll, Mr. Christie was the one candidate or potential candidate with a net-negative approval ranking amongst Republicans — solely 21 p.c of whom seen him favorably, in contrast with 47 p.c who seen him unfavorably.

Mr. Christie stated in New Hampshire in April: “I don’t think that anybody is going to beat Donald Trump by sidling up to him, playing footsie with him and pretending that you’re almost like him.”

But the truth that he supported Mr. Trump all through his presidency went unmentioned until a teenager asked a question: Given his denunciations of Mr. Trump for undermining democracy, did he nonetheless consider Mr. Trump had been a more sensible choice than Mrs. Clinton?

“I still would’ve picked Trump,” Mr. Christie acknowledged.