Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson warned other GOP governors on Saturday that discussing the 2020 presidential race will be a losing strategy for the next election.
“Anybody who wants to talk about the last election is going to lose the next election,” Hutchinson said at the National Governors Association winter meeting, according to Bloomberg.
“To me, it’s all about the future,” he added.
The Republican governor dismissed claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, noting that the vote was challenged and ultimately showed that President Biden won.
“First of all, I don’t believe the election was stolen, and I respect the results,” Hutchinson said, according to Bloomberg.
“They were challenged as need be, and the result is the fact that President Biden is in office,” he added.
Hutchinson also touched on the new voting regulations that state legislatures across the country have passed following the 2020 presidential election. He said local lawmakers have written new laws for “making sure that the votes have integrity,” which he said is “their prerogative,” according to Bloomberg.
Hutchinson has criticized former President Trump and his efforts to relitigate the 2020 presidential election in the past. In October, he said such a strategy could be “a recipe for disaster in 2022,” when the GOP is looking to take control of the House and Senate for the second half of Biden’s presidency.
Earlier this month, Hutchinson said it worries him that individuals who embrace the “big lie” that the election was stolen from Trump are “not demonstrating leadership.”
He said that in order to be a “party of strength over the long term,” the GOP cannot “diminish and minimize the consequences” of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the building in an effort to thwart the counting of the Electoral College votes for the 2020 presidential election.
“We have to, one, make sure we show that that was unacceptable. We have to define it in the right way. It was an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power. And, thirdly, we have to make sure we are clear that President Trump did have some responsibility for that,” Hutchinson said.
“And, beyond that, let’s move on. Let’s talk about the future. And I think that’s how a candidate runs for office,” he added.