Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said on Sunday that the “only Republican” that President Joe Biden could beat in a potential 2024 election would be Donald Trump.
While speaking with ABC’s This Week abut Biden’s popularity, Christie said, “I think Donald Trump is the only Republican he [Biden] can beat,” he said. “I don’t think he could beat any other Republican that could get nominated. But the economy will still be the thing that will determine this, and I think we have more bumps coming to us ahead.”
The former New Jersey governor, a Republican, has been a sharp critic of Trump over the last few months and in light of Trump’s recent indictment Christie has been even more vocal about the former president. While speaking with This Week, Christie also said, “No matter what he says, and his people say, being indicted is not good for a political candidate. He could get some short-term bumps among certain parts of our own party, but in the end it’s not good to be indicted.”
Trump surrendered to the Manhattan courthouse on Tuesday afternoon and was arraigned on charges that were related to an investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office into an alleged campaign finance violation committed by Trump ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
He is now the first president to be indicted in American history and has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in an attempt to hide a reimbursement made to his former personal attorney Michael Cohen, who paid $130,000 to adult film star Stormy Daniels to stay quiet ahead about an affair she claimed she had with Trump in 2006. Trump has denied the affair and asserted his innocence throughout the investigation.
Meanwhile, in a slew of recent polls released after Trump’s indictment, the former president is trailing Biden or is within the margin of error. A YouGov poll released on Thursday shows Biden outpolling Trump by two points in a potential 2024 race. According to the poll, Trump has 37 percent of the vote compared to Biden’s 39 percent. This poll sampled 1,000 U.S. adult citizens from April 4-6. The margin of error was 3.3 percent.
However, a recent Rassmussen Reports poll also shows Trump holding a 7-point advantage over Biden. Trump garnered 47 percent of the vote to Biden’s 40 percent. The survey polled 971 likely U.S. voters and was conducted on March 30 and April 2-3. There is a 3-point margin of error for this poll.
Political analyst and Dillard University professor Robert Collins told Newsweek on Sunday, “The paradox of Trump is that all the polls show that he is the strongest Republican in the primary, but the weakest in the general election. Current polling shows he loses to Biden in most head-to-head matchups, while every other Republican candidate we put in hypothetical matchups actually beat Biden.”
Collins added: “Whether or not his low ratings only doom his own campaign, or they drag down all of the down-ballot Republican candidates depends on how low his favorable ratings get. And that depends on what happens in the courts with any new indictments.”
