“He’s just not getting the traction that I think he was expecting,” said Andy Seale, the former chairman of the Republican Party in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire.

Christie has become such an also-ran that the Associated Press and the New York Times recently reassigned reporters dedicated to covering Christie — Jill Colvin and Kate Zernike — to other beats…

Trump’s dominance of the news cycle is a major factor holding Christie down, others said. How, Republicans wonder, can Christie hope to be the one dropping truth bombs when Trump is strafing voters 24/7?

“It’s hard to be the candidate making his mark for frankness when your competition is Trump,” said Katie Packer Gage, a former top aide to Mitt Romney. “So he needs to find a new schtick or hope Trump trips up soon.”

But it’s not just Trump. Operatives in rival campaigns also point to the threat to Christie from Kasich — another brash, plainspoken governor with a focus on New Hampshire. Kasich has surged to third place in the state, according to last week’s Franklin-Pierce University/Boston Herald poll, behind Trump and Bush.