The reports of his demise have been greatly exaggerated.

At least the reports of his elimination from the Trump veepstakes may have been exaggerated, as it seems Chris Christie is actively lobbying for the position.

Christie has fiercely guarded his reputation as a strong executive, taken pains not to see his vetoes overturned and put forward sweeping proposals that anger liberals and have little chance of passing.

He’s also echoed Trump’s talking points on “radical Islam” and has become the presumptive Republican nominee’s chief apologist, bucking other Republicans by refusing to call his remarks about Judge Gonzalo Curiel racist.

“Once it was clear his own presidential ambitions came to an end, at least for the time being, he switched gears for ‘How do I get out of New Jersey?’ And it was getting on the Trump bandwagon,” said Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray.

Anybody who has been paying attention for the past year knows that the best way to get in Trump’s good graces is to spend copious amounts of time sucking up to him. Nobody has embodied the toady role better than Christie, whether it be in allowing Trump to speak to him as if he were an underling, rather than a state executive, or fetching his McDonald’s order for him. Christie traded off his pride for ambition long ago.

While the closest Christie advisors say he’s not actively vying for the second slot at the top of the GOP ticket, New Jersey Democrats say otherwise.

Democrats who have long fought Christie at home, however, say they’ve seen this play out before. Christie is using his job in New Jersey not to govern there, but to build his reputation for the national stage, they say.

“He’s been auditioning for president. For Trump vice president. For presidential nominee four years from now. He auditioned for all of it,” said state Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, a Democrat, citing “the way he consistently carries the flag of the very right-wing portion for the Republican primary voters.”

Christie has left a lot of the governing duties for New Jersey to his lieutenant governor, as he was either running for the presidency or acting as Trump surrogate. His approval ratings in the state are at around 26%. That would make Christie as VP questionable.

All of this is on the heels of news that Christie had been eliminated from the running. This, as I stated somewhere earlier, all depends on what mood Trump is in when he makes the announcement at the convention in a week.

In the meantime, we’ll continue to see Chris Christie decimating any of the remain shreds of dignity he may have had left.