Sure, he would have.
Via NJ Com:
The first time I asked Gov. Chris Christie a question we were 2,000 miles from New Jersey. I was a year into my first newspaper job in southeast New Mexico. Christie, just eight months into his first term, was there to stump for Susana Martinez’s campaign for governor.
Noting the candidate’s law-and-order record, Christie played up the Jersey shtick that worked so well for him.[…]
In the final days, Christie says he’ll leave Trenton with a sense of calm.
“We were gonna swing for the fences,” he said. “I had no interest in being a small bore governor with tiny accomplishments that wouldn’t offend, but probably wouldn’t impress either. I wanted to be a governor of consequence and do big things.”
That includes pension and health benefits reform for public workers, a 2 percent arbitration cap for police and firefighters aimed at keeping property taxes from soaring, the state’s higher education merger, an expansion of charter schools and bail reform. In his final year, he has focused on opioid addiction.
“I think when people look back at it and when they compare what other governors have done before me, let’s say in the last 40 years. I don’t think that there’s anybody who’s done more of consequence over the last 40 years,” he said.[…]
Then a year after he racked up big wins for GOP governors across the country as chairman of the Republican Governors Association, only three — Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Paul LePage of Maine and Larry Hogan of Maryland — backed him for president.
Christie said he “will be eternally grateful, for the rest of my life,” to those three, who he said “had the guts to stand up and endorse somebody in that race and endorse me,” Christie said.
“And I will always have a real sense of disappointment that the other governors didn’t endorse me, or at least endorse someone in that race,” he said. “If I had a nickel for every time one of them said to me ‘Let me just wait another month to see how everything falls out and then I’ll make a decision,’ and then they never did.”
Angry that Bush, I pressed, entered the race, then?
“I’m not angry at anybody,” he responded.
“I think it’s very presumptuous to be angry that someone else decided to run for president,” he said. “I just never ever believed that Jeb could win and I don’t know why anyone ever believed Jeb could win.”
It’s because of the Bush name, he said.
“It worked for him in raising all that money. But it made the money a nonstarter. It just didn’t matter,” Christie said. “But if I had that money or someone else? It would have made a huge difference.”
He called the presidential race “incredibly exciting” and “at times very discouraging.”
“(The) stakes are exciting. The issues you’re talking about are exciting,” he said. “And ultimately frustrating at times because the reaction I would get from people and Mary Pat got this from going door to door, you know, they’d say, ‘Oh gosh, you’re Governor Christie’s wife? We love him. He’s so smart. He’s so direct, he’s so blunt. We love him. We’re voting for Trump. But we love your husband. He’s amazing.'”
Christie said he has no doubt he would have won if not for the blunt-talking Trump’s decision to run.