Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is weighing in on the current position in the 2020 presidential election with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden holding the lead, as of Thursday morning.
As of 8:45 a.m. EST on Thursday, Biden has garnered 253 Electoral College votes out of the 270 needed to win the White House. Trump has 214 electoral votes so far.
Asked by ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos how President Donald Trump has “to think about confronting falling short,” Christie noted during Thursday’s interview that “it starts with Arizona.”
He added that the principle remains the same for Trump as it does for Biden, that “all the votes should be counted and counted fairly.”
Christie also noted that Trump has to “keep his eyes on the ball” in Pennsylvania because it is a “must-win state” for the president now. Trump holds a lead in Pa., as of Thursday at 8:45 a.m. EST, with 89% of estimated votes counted.
“For the president, his focus, since he is the president, is not on transition but is on trying to get to a place where he can get to 270,” Christie said, then declaring, “This one is not over yet and no one should act as if it is because that’s respecting the American people’s will as well.”
See Christie’s comments below:
.@GovChristie on President Donald Trump’s path to 270 electoral college votes: “This one is not over yet and no one should act as if it is.”#ElectionResults2020https://t.co/FWZf5KYHIc pic.twitter.com/iOGUsKejwY
— Good Morning America (@GMA) November 5, 2020
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs also appeared on “Good Morning America” where she noted on Thursday morning that there are just under 300,000 votes in Maricopa County left to count. That is two-thirds of the voting population, “where the bulk of the votes are,” as Hobbs noted.
Statewide, Hobbs said there are just under 450,000 votes left to count. She said she is leaning toward Friday for when she expects the final counts to be done.
Asked by Stephanopoulos about potential legal challenges in the state on vote counting, Hobbs said, “There’s nothing wrong with continuing to count ballots after election day. We’ve never finished counting ballots on election day.”
When also pressed on her “sense of a possible recount” in Arizona, Hobbs responded, “Our recount margins are very narrow, it’s 200 votes or one-tenth of one percent of the total votes cast for that race so I don’t think we’re going to get to that territory.”
See her remarks below:
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs on the ongoing count in a state that decide the presidency: “There's nothing wrong with continuing to count ballots after election day. We've never finished counting ballots on election day.”#ElectionResults2020https://t.co/FWZf5KYHIc pic.twitter.com/GaKaKV0Khc
— Good Morning America (@GMA) November 5, 2020
Many have taken note of Arizona’s vote count, including FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver, who wrote in a live post on Wednesday night, “I don’t know, I guess I’d say that Biden will win Arizona if you forced me to pick, but I sure as heck don’t think the state should have been called by anyone, and I think the calls that were previously made should be retracted now.”
Fox News and the Associated Press projected Biden to win Arizona, and have since defended those projections.
According to FiveThirtyEight, both Arizona and Georgia tightened over Wednesday night. Trump currently leads in Georgia while Biden leads in Arizona, as of Thursday morning.