Speaking on stage Monday night at a town hall in New Hampshire, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made a promise to the audience: He’s not going anywhere ahead of the state’s primary.

“I will be here every week, multiple days a week, over the next nine weeks,” he pledged to the crowd in Nashua, the Granite State’s second-largest city. “You’re going to be tired of me.”

It’s a covenant that highlights Christie’s strategy as he seeks the 2024 presidential nomination. From the moment he entered the race, he has zeroed in on New Hampshire, holding numerous town halls with the goal of a strong finish in the first-in-the-nation — and the belief that such a performance could help bolster his campaign against former President Donald Trump, the race’s frontrunner.

Christie, far and away the most vocal critic of Trump in the race, has portrayed himself as the only one willing to take on the former president and warning that Republicans must move on from him or suffer more electoral losses.

“He has given away his credibility that he’ll serve the American people because all he’s done is serve himself,” Christie said Monday night in Nashua.

Christie is far from the only candidate to criticize Trump — earlier Monday, former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said that “chaos follows” the former president, though she conceded he “was the right president at the right time” —  but the former New Jersey governor, an ally-turned-foe of Trump, has gone all-in on campaigning against the ex-president’s legal troubles, and is critical of his fellow 2024 GOP hopefuls for not attacking him more directly.

“I don’t think he was the right president at the right time,” Christie said, before admitting: “I voted for him and I was wrong.”

“And I ain’t pardoning him if I’m President of the United States because he doesn’t deserve one,” he added.

Many attendees told Spectrum News that they attended Monday’s event because they respect Christie’s stance on Trump. One such attendee, who described himself as a “lifelong liberal,” said that he was “very impressed” by what he had to say about the former president. Another said that they were “especially happy that he has taken a position” on Trump. One New Hampshire resident, John Shuttle, said he appreciated that Christie is “not afraid of the guy.”

“I think all the other candidates show him too much respect,” Shuttle added.

Christie was joined Monday by New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a popular Republican figure in the state and a highly sought endorsement for the 2024 GOP hopefuls. Sununu briefly mulled a presidential bid of his own earlier this year before announcing he would not seek a fifth term in office. He has warned that a third White House bid by Trump could be disastrous for Republicans.

“If he is the nominee, Republicans will lose again,” Sununu wrote in a June op-ed for the Washington Post. "Just as we did in 2018, 2020 and 2022. This is indisputable, and I am not willing to let it happen without a fight.”

On Monday night, Sununu joked that Christie is “almost a citizen” of New Hampshire based on his frequent visits to the state.

“We’re going first,” Sununu said of New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary, calling their status at the front of the nomination process both an “opportunity” and a “responsibility.”

“The rest of the country is looking at us,” he continued. “We are kind of that first filter. We said for months we’re going to narrow this field down, we did, we are, and we’re going to continue to do so. We don’t have 13 candidates on there, we have like … 2, 3, 4 realistic candidates — let’s go with three, three realistic candidates, I mean, really — that are real viable options for us.”

Sununu was set to appear Tuesday at an event with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his third such appearance with a GOP hopeful in two days.

A recent poll found Christie sitting in third in the New Hampshire Republican primary with 9% support, trailing Haley at 18% and Trump with a commanding 49%. Christie topped DeSantis, who had 7% support, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy with 5%.

Adding up support for Christie and Haley puts them within striking distance of Trump, though Christie told Spectrum News that he is not interested in a so-called “unity ticket” to take down the former president.

When asked if there was a responsibility to consolidate the primary, Christie replied that “there’s a responsibility to win, and that’s what I’m going to do.”