Christie's home-grown networker takes on New Hampshire

Gov. Christie was gone, trailed by reporters as he left the Portsmouth, N.H., park where he had called for military investment and tougher intelligence.

But not everyone had dispersed.

"That's really important in politics - show who you are," Matt Mowers said, talking with a couple who approached him after last week's speech.

Once tasked with assisting New Jersey mayors as an aide in Christie's administration and courting their endorsements for his 2013 reelection campaign, Mowers, 25, now is trying to build relationships for Christie in New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation primary state, seen as key to the governor's presidential chances.

Mowers spent more than a year as the executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party, a position announced the day after Christie's reelection.

In January, he joined Christie's Leadership Matters for America political action committee, which has put together events from New Hampshire town-hall meetings to policy speeches as the governor considers a 2016 campaign.

Mowers works out of his apartment and coffee shops, as does Matthew Moroney, 27, a New Hampshire operative hired this spring as the committee's second staffer there. Moroney worked on New Hampshire Republican Walt Havenstein's gubernatorial campaign last year, a bid Christie backed as chairman of the Republican Governors Association.

"It helps to have a local person as your guy or girl. Matt [Mowers] sort of qualifies for having been here a year," said Fergus Cullen, a former New Hampshire Republican Party chairman. "He didn't just parachute in."

An East Brunswick native, Mowers has been involved in politics since he was a teenager. A New Jersey state senator hired him upon his high school graduation to run a reelection campaign.

"He had worked from, I don't know, the age of 2 on political campaigns," said Sen. Gerald Cardinale (R., Bergen), who said Mowers had come recommended.

As the 2007 election neared, Mowers - then a Rutgers freshman - was sleeping on the floor of an empty campaign office, Cardinale said.

In Christie's administration, Mowers, who graduated from Rutgers in 2011, worked for the now-disbanded Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, run by former Christie campaign manager Bill Stepien. Mowers and other staffers, tasked with helping mayors, also worked to secure endorsements for Christie's reelection.

Mowers had met with Mark Sokolich, the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee whom federal prosecutors say was targeted by three former Christie allies recently charged in the September 2013 George Washington Bridge lane closures. Prosecutors say the closures, which jammed traffic in the borough, were meant to punish Sokolich for failing to endorse Christie's reelection.

Mowers testified before a legislative committee last year that Sokolich told him in March 2013 he could not endorse Christie and that "to my knowledge," the campaign did not raise the issue again. Mowers, who left Christie's office the next month to work for the campaign full time, has not been implicated in the closures.

In New Hampshire, Mowers "caught a lot of heat" from Democrats over the scandal but seemed to stay good-natured, said Tom Rath, a GOP strategist there who advised the campaigns of Mitt Romney and President George W. Bush, among others.

Rath, who is unaffiliated in the 2016 race, said Mowers occasionally had sought his input on venues for Christie's events. "You get a sense they have thought through where they need to go to get the votes you need to win," Rath said.

Mike Dennehy, a New Hampshire Republican strategist who has been advising former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, said Mowers' background with the state party "gives you a starting point."

"In an ideal world, the Christie campaign would want to fill that out with New Hampshire political veterans," said Dennehy, who advised Arizona Sen. John McCain's campaigns. "It's about having someone who knows the top 2,000 to 3,000 Republican leaders, officials, and activists."

Though the number of contenders has made it difficult for potential candidates to lock up support, Dennehy said, Christie is "generating a crowd wherever he goes."

Mowers is also shaping opinions. As Christie toured a diner in Amherst, N.H., this month, John O'Brien of Hudson said he didn't believe the governor had been involved in the bridge scandal.

"Matt told me no," O'Brien said.