In firing Mr. Stepien, Mr. Christie cited a “tone and habits and perspective of callous indifference” in Mr. Stepien’s emails that “made me lose my
In firing Mr. Stepien, Mr. Christie cited a “tone and habits and perspective of callous indifference” in Mr. Stepien’s emails that “made me lose my confidence in Invoice’s judgment.”
However the two have since reconciled.
“Even throughout that time frame, when then-candidate Trump got here to me and requested me in ’16 about whether or not or not he ought to rent Invoice, I advised him he completely ought to,” mentioned Mr. Christie, who mentioned he now talked with Mr. Stepien a number of instances per week. “There was not any falling out when it comes to my belief in Invoice’s expertise throughout that time frame.”
Mr. Stepien, 42, obtained his begin in politics in 1997, when he was nonetheless a scholar at Rutgers, volunteering for the marketing campaign of State Senator Anthony R. Bucco of New Jersey. Mr. Stepien would work in a single day within the headquarters, coming after hockey follow to ship out mailers to absentee voters, reminding them to return their ballots on time.
From there, Mr. Stepien slowly climbed the ranks of New Jersey politics. He served as the driving force for a Senate run by Bob Franks in 2000, as a lower-level employees member for Mr. Franks’s race for governor in 2001, and because the marketing campaign supervisor for Invoice Baroni’s State Meeting race in 2003, through which Mr. Baroni beat a Democratic incumbent in a historically Democratic district.
The Baroni victory put Mr. Stepien on the map in New Jersey. Mike DuHaime, a longtime New Jersey political operative, introduced him into his consulting agency, a job that led to positions on the Republican Nationwide Committee and on the 2008 presidential campaigns of Rudolph W. Giuliani and Senator John McCain.
However his political breakout got here with Mr. Christie in 2009, when Mr. Stepien managed his first marketing campaign for governor. Although their opponent, Jon Corzine, was a susceptible incumbent, Mr. Christie was additionally dealing with an impartial candidate, Chris Daggett, whom inside marketing campaign polls had at almost 20 %, maintaining Mr. Christie caught at 40 %.
Mr. Stepien, together with Mr. DuHaime and Mr. Christie, employed TargetPoint, a Republican knowledge agency, to ask Mr. Daggett’s supporters whom their second selection was.