Christie has $2.9 million banked after good third quarter, but Haley has three times as much money

Chris Christie has $2,915,219 cash-on-hand for his 2024 presidential bid after raising $3,782,657 during the third quarter of this year and spending just $1,457,601 on what has been a low-budget campaign with few expenses.

This gives the former New Jersey governor enough money to compete in the New Hampshire GOP primary, a must-win state where he is investing nearly all of his time and resources.

“If I don’t do well in New Hampshire, then I’ll leave,” Christie told the New York Times in September.

But his numbers are dwarfed by other candidates: Donald Trump has $37.5 million banked, Nikki Haley has $9.1 million, and Ron DeSantis has $5 million.

A Public Opinion Strategies poll released earlier this month has Christie in fourth place with 8%.

The surprisingly impressive warchest for the first-in-the-nation primary does not include dollars earmarked for the general election or money raised by his super PAC, Tell It Like It Is.

Christie donors include former Major League Baseball pitcher Al Leiter, State Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield), and Saddle River Councilman John Azzariti, who is expected to capture a Bergen County Assembly seat next month.

In his 2016 campaign, Christie had raised more than $4.2 million during the third quarter of 2015 and spent over $2.8 million.  He had emerged from the reporting period with almost $1.4 million cash-on-hand and wound up finishing sixth in the New Hampshire primary with 7.4% of the vote.

Christie’s warchest is about $13 million less than New Jersey’s Human Fundraising Machine, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff).