Chris Christie blames Trump, calls Herschel Walker a ‘bad candidate’

by Julia Mueller - 12/11/22 1:10 PM ET

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Sunday knocked failed Republican Senate hopeful Herschel Walker and blamed former President Trump for backing the “bad candidate.”

“Bad candidates lose. Good candidates have a chance to win. And Herschel Walker was not a good candidate,” Christie, an ABC contributor, said on the network’s “This Week.”

Neither Walker nor incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock secured more than half the votes on November’s Election Day to win the Georgia seat, but Warnock emerged victorious last week after an intense runoff.

Christie drew attention to Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, who won reelection in November and secured some 200,000 more votes than Walker did. Kemp’s presence on the ballot was seen as a boost for Walker, but the Republican didn’t get that advantage during the runoff.

“If you’re Herschel Walker and you don’t win that night, you’re not winning. I mean, Kemp’s endorsement is fine, but it’s the top of the ticket in getting people to stay in that line. … If Herschel Walker doesn’t get 50 that night, he’s not getting it,” Christie said.

Kemp cut an ad for Walker in the runoff, but it wasn’t enough to help the Republican across the finish line.

Walker’s loss was seen as a particular blow to Trump, who endorsed the controversial Republican and stumped for him in the state.

“On the Donald Trump side … we all remember in 2016 he said if he got elected there was going to be so much winning and winning and winning and winning [that] they’d get sick of winning. None of us knew at the time he was actually talking about the Democrats were going to do all that winning, not the Republicans,” Christie said Sunday.

“And that’s what he’s wrought. And Herschel Walker is his creation. And so he’s got to own the fact that Herschel Walker so vastly underperformed in a state — as we saw earlier, every other Republican running statewide won except for Herschel Walker. You know what that tells you? Bad candidate.”