Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Sunday predicted Republican Joe O’Dea will pull off an upset victory on Tuesday and flip Colorado’s Senate seat, which is currently held by Sen. Michael Bennet (D).
“The other upset and surprise you’re going to see I think on Tuesday night is Joe O’Dea, the Republican candidate for United States Senate in Colorado, is going to beat Michael Bennet. And that’s going to be a huge surprise,” said Christie on ABC’s “This Week.”
Polls show Bennet with the edge in the race, which is rated “lean Democrat” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
An Emerson College-The Hill poll of likely voters late last month found Bennet held a 7-point lead, garnering 49 percent support to O’Dea’s 42 percent.
O’Dea, unlike a number of GOP nominees in competitive Senate races, has broken with former President Trump and did not receive his backing in the primary.
The Colorado Republican and construction company CEO has portrayed himself as a moderate and vowed to campaign against Trump if he mounts another White House bid, arguing the party should pick another candidate in 2024.
“He flat-out said that he believes that Joe Biden was the legitimately elected president of the United States and had Trump attack him,” Christie said of O’Dea on Sunday. “And in Colorado, he is driving Michael Bennet to distraction. He’s going to win the race.”
O’Dea has won the support of other prominent Republicans, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who recorded a robocall for the nominee.
Trump responded by calling the move by DeSantis, a potential rival for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, a “big mistake.”
The former president has also described O’Dea as “stupid” and a “RINO,” an acronym for “Republican in name only.”