One of the major reasons for Christie’s new optimism is that he found he will be able to capitalize on his longtime friendship with the top Republican in the state. Though Gov. Terry Branstad is officially neutral in the Iowa caucus, Christie’s Iowa team is run by Phil Valenziano, who was the political director for Branstad’s 2014 re-election campaign. His senior advisor in the state is Jake Ketzner, another Branstad alum. “I wound up getting a lot of support from a lot of the people who are on Gov. Branstad’s team,” Christie admitted. Two prominent Republicans with close ties to the governor, agribusiness executive Bruce Rastetter and state Speaker of the House Kraig Paulsen, are hosting a fundraiser for Christie in Iowa on Jan. 15. (Many other Branstad alums, including Dave Kochel and Tim Albrecht are working for Bush, who has pulled his campaign’s television ads from Iowa airwaves amid a financial crunch.)

For Christie, a former chairman of the Republican Governors Association, or RGA, Iowa is something of a test run. Christie is betting that he can leverage his relationships and connections to tap into a state-by-state network of governors’ staffers and donors in Republican-led states like South Carolina, Massachusetts and Michigan…

At meetings of the RGA for years, the nation’s governors have said one of their own should be president, but the first casualties of the 2016 race were Scott Walker, Rick Perry, and Bobby Jindal. “There’s long been chatter among the governors that the next nominee should be an executive,” the aide said. “There was a lot of optimism with Walker, Perry, and Jindal. And, unless Jeb [Bush] turns it around, it’s now looking like Christie is the last one standing and there may be people willing to take a more public stand.”