Chris Christie’s Christmas Wish: A New Hampshire Win

— -- With four days to go until Christmas and six weeks until New Hampshire goes to the polls, it’s not hard to imagine what Chris Christie’s Christmas wish is as he campaigns through the state on a four-day bus tour.

“If I win the New Hampshire primary, I’m going to be the next president of the United States of America,” the Republican presidential candidate boldly predicted at the conclusion of a town hall in Bedford Saturday night.

It’s here in the Granite State where Christie’s campaign has shown signs of life in recent weeks after months of struggling to gain traction in the crowded Republican primary, with recent polling showing Christie tied for second place behind front-runner Donald Trump.

With his wife, children, and 82-year-old father in tow as he crisscrosses the state for a pre-Christmas tour in a shiny new campaign bus emblazoned with his campaign slogan “Telling It Like It is,” Christie gushes with affection for the voters of the state who have given his candidacy a second look.

“We’re thrilled to share our family with you because you’ve shared your family with us,” Christie, 53, said after introducing his four children to a town hall that drew an estimated 500 attendees this weekend. “We really feel like you’ve welcomed us into your family and it’s a really wonderful thing to experience as a candidate, I have to tell you.”

Christie has spent more time campaigning in New Hampshire than any other Republican candidate, which he likes to tout while adding, jokingly, that the second-place slot is filled by his wife, Mary Pat, who is a regular presence on the campaign trail.

And it’s that in-person contact that many voters in attendance at his town halls – events that can last up to two hours with Christie fielding question after question – say is moving the needle in the New Jersey governor’s favor.

David Gilligan, 73, was in attendance at Christie’s Bedford town hall this weekend but had already resolved to support him after attending another Christie town hall two weeks prior.

“He seemed like a real person, who really wanted to get something done and the TV is so focused on just a couple of guys,” Gilligan said.

Gilligan brought undecided voter Carol Howard, 72, along with him to this town hall.

Howard said she isn’t likely to make up her mind until the middle of January but said she found Christie to be “very impressive” after sitting through his town hall and that his frequent, in-person interactions with New Hampshire voters is a mark in his factor.

“He’s out more, so like my coming tonight, you’ll get to see the whole package and I think his getting out and being out with people so people can see him does make a big difference,” Howard said.

But Linda Sirois, a financial consultant, who said she was 80 percent leaning toward Christie when she came to his Bedford town hall, walked away supporting him 100 percent.

“He got my vote,” Sorois said as she walked out of the middle school gymnasium at the close of the town hall.

Sorois has cast a wide net as she surveys the field of candidates but said it’s at Christie whom many people are now looking with a renewed seriousness after the New Hampshire Union Leader endorsement last month.

“I think he’s getting a lot of serious second looks,” Sirois said. “I’ve seen Lindsey Graham, I’ve seen Carly [Fiorina], I’ve seen Jeb [Bush]. My mother is becoming a Christie supporter and I came to see if the support is growing.”

Renee Plummer, a prominent real estate developer and GOP activist who recently threw her endorsement behind Christie, said the she's seeing real momentum for him in the state as he has built a rapport with voters.

“He reaches into a crowd, he might be on a stage but that stage is not there to separate him from everyone else. He is really reaching into American hearts and just saying, 'I’ll take care of this,'” Plummer said.

And that connection that Christie is making with New Hampshire voters, she said, is coming at just the right time.

“There are a lot of people that are now moving over,” Plummer said. “And this is the time, people that didn’t decide four or five months ago, this is the time.”

Despite his growing support in the state, one challenge for Christie is that he maintains one of the smallest New Hampshire staffs in the Republican field. (He only has four staffers in the state, compared to 20 for Jeb Bush, for instance.)

So to round out his holiday push, Christie brought along some help from New Jersey: a caravan of more than a hundred loyal Christie followers, bused in to knock on doors.

"Because we're better," he said. "We'll do more work than their paid staff has done in a month."

ABC News' Brad Mielke contributed reporting.