While saying that Kamala Harris should pick Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate, Chris Christie explained how Trump created Shapiro with his ridiculous stupidity.
Transcript:
CHRISTIE: It should be Josh Shapiro. I don’t think this is a hard choice. He’s a very talented politician. He’s extraordinarily popular, 65 percent job approval in a state she needs to win. This is really important. And I’ll tell you this. What — if she picks Shapiro on Tuesday, Donald Trump created Josh Shapiro.
STEPHANOPOULOS: How so?
CHRISTIE: He endorsed Mastriano, the weakest Republican candidate in that field. What it allowed Josh Shapiro to do was, instead of playing to his base to try to win a narrow election, he saw an opportunity for a coalition-building election, and that’s what he did.
Sp now he’s seen as a coalition builder because he did it, but the only reason he could do it is because Trump made another ridiculously stupid endorsement by endorsing Mastriano, who was a flawed, weak, bad candidate. If Josh Shapiro winds up winning and they — and Trump loses Pennsylvania, he can go back to his decision in 2022 as planting the seeds for that loss.
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Josh Shapiro was always going to beat Doug Mastriano. By wading into the race, Trump took what was going to be a Democratic victory and turned it into a coalition-building blowout that allowed Shapiro to define his political brand and seize the state’s moderate vote. Shapiro’s center-left coalition is still visible in his approval ratings today, and it might not have happened without Donald Trump.
A solid consensus seems to have built around Josh Shapiro being the running mate pick, but Christie was right. If Trump loses Pennsylvania, he will only have himself to blame.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
