And in Iowa, Republicans are also frustrated with Christie’s decision to team up with Obama. “I think it is something they’re going to remember,” Craig Robinson, former political director of the state GOP and editor of The Iowa Republican, says.

At a recent event featuring Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, also a potential 2016 contender, Robinson says he heard two Iowa Republicans dismiss Christie as “just too liberal.”

New Hampshire GOP strategist Mike Dennehy agrees that Christie is risking alienating GOP-primary voters. “I think everyone understands in a crisis elected leaders getting together to view devastation,” Dennehy remarks. But, he says, Christie “just has to be careful about being seen as too cozy with a president who has been sticking his thumb in the eye of Republicans all across the country.” Toward near the end of 2016, he says, “Obama will be most disliked Democrat president Republicans have ever seen.” And the Republicans Christie is alienating are some of the most involved in the volunteering, fundraising, and organizing that is so crucial to win primaries in the early states.