Governor Chris Christie said Wednesday he'd worked "very hard" for Mitt Romney and the Republican ticket and argued he didn't "embrace" President Barack Obama. Christie has been under fire from some conservative commentators for overly-effusive praise of the President in the wake of storm Sandy.
Christie fended off speculation about his own ambitions come 2016. The questions came at a daily storm briefing.
Christie was primed to talk evacuation and power outages but reporters wanted to know if his positive reviews of President Obama's Sandy response had an impact on the election's results.
"I wouldn't call what I did an embrace of Obama," Christie said. "I'm a guy that tells the truth all the time. I was the first Governor in American to endorse Mitt Romney and worked very hard for him."
Several of the out-of-state candidates Christie stumped for did prevail including conservative Republican Congressman Steve King as well as four GOP gubernatorial candidates.
But Christie's hands-on involvement did not always guarantee success even close to home. Christie campaigned several times for Republican State Senator Joe Kyrillos,who was easily defeated by Democratic U.S. Senator Bob Menendez. New Jersey Republicans have not elected a U.S. Senator it almost 40 years.
Peter Woolley, a political science professor at Fairleigh Dickenson University predicted Christie's extensive out-of-state campaigning will pay dividends for Christie down the road.
"They will raise money for him or their moment is going to come when they do finally win elective office," Woolley said.