Chris Christie says GOP ‘nominated some bad candidates’

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Sunday said Republicans “nominated some bad candidates” in the midterm elections after the GOP underperformed on projections of a red wave.

Christie said in a roundtable discussion on ABC News that Democrats “got more fired up than people thought and that polls demonstrated.”

“Also, we nominated some bad candidates, especially on the Senate side,” the former governor explained. “That’s something we’ve been talking about since the summer, and people thought that maybe the overall atmosphere of the poor performance of the economy, crime issues and others would overwhelm that.”

“That’s what I thought would happen,” he added. “It didn’t.”

Democrats etched out a win with 50 seats in the Senate on Saturday after Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) was projected to keep her post. A runoff race in Georgia will determine which party nabs the last seat up for election in that chamber but with Vice President Harris casting a tie-breaking vote, Democrats will retain a majority that polls and pundits suggested was not at times within their grasp.

Nearly two dozen races are still to be called in the House, which will determine which party ends up controlling that chamber.

Headed into Election Day, Republicans were expected to pick up enough seats to control at least the House, following historical trends of the incumbent president’s party losing seats in Congress. President Biden’s low approval ratings as well as record-high inflation had several political forecasters predicting major Democratic loses.

Some Republicans blamed candidates who fiercely aligned with former President Trump and his false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) noted on Sunday that Republicans more closely associated with Trump “underperformed” compared to other GOP nominees.

In Pennsylvania, Democrats flipped a Senate seat after GOP nominee Mehmet Oz was defeated by Democratic candidate John Fetterman in a race considered a toss-up.

Other Trump-aligned Senate candidates in New Hampshire, Arizona and Washington state also lost key races.