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 Christie said the billionaire front-runner has the best chance of
beating Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential
election - although Clinton has yet to secure her party's
nomination.
The endorsement gives Trump a further lift before next week's Super
Tuesday nominating contests. It comes just a day after he took a
battering from his two main rivals at a televised Republican debate.
Trump's unorthodox candidacy has stirred controversy and shaken the
Republican Party at its roots, but an increasing number of senior
Republicans are becoming resigned to the idea he will be their
candidate in November.
Trump is "rewriting the playbook," said Christie, 53, who until two
weeks ago was himself a rival for the Republican nomination.
Christie dropped out after failing to muster much support for his
candidacy.
Trump, 69, who has never held public office, has campaigned as a
political outsider. He is riding a wave of voter anger at the slow
economic recovery, illegal immigration and what he says is America's
diminishing role in the world.
 "The best person to beat Hillary Clinton in November on that stage
last night is undoubtedly Donald Trump," Christie told a news
conference on Friday, a day after the last Republican candidates'
debate before Super Tuesday.
The debate marked a new, more aggressive approach for U.S. Senator
Marco Rubio, 44, who has emerged as the Republican establishment's
challenger to Trump. The other main challenger at the debate was
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.
Trump has unsettled mainstream Republicans by winning three straight
nominating contests - in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.
Polls show he is likely to win big in key primaries on Tuesday.
"Since I started this whole thing I've been practically Number 1,"
Trump said on Friday at a rally in Texas.
The 11 Republican nominating contests on Tuesday have a total of
almost 600 delegates at stake, and could set Trump up to clinch the
presidential nomination.
Reuters/Ipsos polling data on Friday showed Trump ahead nationally
in the Republican race with support at 44.2 percent, followed by
Cruz at 20.7 percent and Rubio in third place at 14 percent.
On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Clinton is
battling U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Clinton and Sanders
have been in a dead head over the past week, the Reuters/Ipsos data
shows.
RUBIO ATTACKS
Trump has vowed to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border to halt
illegal immigration, called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering
the United States and promised to take a tough stance on trade
against China.
He was combative at a rally on Friday. He mocked Rubio, referred to
violent Islamist militants as "these animals" and promised to defend
Americans' constitutional right to bear arms.
"We're going to build up our military, we're going to knock out
ISIS. We're going to knock out ISIS fast," he said, referring to the
Islamic State militant group.
Wielding a water bottle as a prop, Trump made fun of Rubio for an
awkward incident in which the senator grabbed for a drink of water
off camera during an important televised speech in 2013.
Rubio and Cruz ganged up on Trump at Thursday's debate in Houston in
a last-ditch bid to keep him from winning in states on Super
Tuesday.
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Rubio on Friday again took aim at Trump.
"He’s a con man who’s taking advantage of people's fears and
anxieties about the future, portraying himself as some sort of
strong guy," Rubio told reporters in Oklahoma. "He’s not a strong
guy. He’s never faced real adversity before."
PredictWise, a research project that analyzes opinion polls and
betting markets, said Trump would comfortably win among Republicans
in all but one of the 11 Super Tuesday states that it measured.
Cruz, 45, is likely to win in his home state of Texas, PredictWise
said.
Rubio's home state of Florida is not part of the Super Tuesday
contests.
PredictIt, based out of Victoria University in Wellington, New
Zealand, on Friday gave Trump a 73 percent chance of winning the
nomination compared with a peak 75 percent chance two days earlier.
Trump's swipes at rival candidates and heated exchanges with
journalists and others have for months bolstered his standing in
nominating contests and opinion polls.
In a post on Twitter, Trump took aim at Rubio, a first-term senator,
for his debate performance.
"Lightweight Marco Rubio was working hard last night. The problem
is, he is a choker, and once a choker, always a chocker (sic)! Mr.
Meltdown."
Republican strategist Doug Heye said Christie may have opened the
door for more mainstream Republican endorsements of a man whose
chances of winning the White House were seen as next to nil a year
ago.
“If you’re the Trump campaign this is obviously very good news and
it gives permission for others to endorse. But it also makes it hard
(for Trump) to make the outsider argument," he said.
Glenn Hubbard, who had been an adviser to the campaign of former
Florida Governor Jeb Bush and was chair of the Council of Economic
Advisers during the George H.W. Bush administration, said he planned
to keep up steady criticism of Trump on economic issues.
"I think it is time for serious people to stand up and be counted.
The next few weeks come very quickly," said Hubbard, who published a
column in the Boston Globe on Friday criticizing Trump.
Hubbard, now dean of the business school at Columbia University,
told Reuters he worried Trump's comments already hurt the country's
image abroad and would hobble his ability to govern if elected.
(Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Clarece Polke, Howard
Schneider and Susan Heavey in Washington and Melissa Fares and Chris
Kahn in New York; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Howard Goller
and Leslie Adler)
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