Christie’s brother, a well-connected Republican fundraiser, said the governor hasn’t changed his mind.

“I’m sure that he’s not going to run,” Todd Christie said. “If he’s lying to me, I’ll be as stunned as I’ve ever been in my life.”

Three people close to Christie said they were surprised by Kean’s comments to National Review, a conservative magazine. They said the two men hadn’t spoken in about a week — Christie and Kean gave back-to-back speeches at a Homeland Security conference on Wednesday -— and they insisted that Christie wasn’t going to run.