"There's room in the Republican Party for moderates, like Chris Christie." - Rand Paul

The sweeping re-election of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie proves moderates are an integral part of the Republican Party, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky says.

"There's room in the Republican Party for moderates, like Chris Christie. They seem to be the only ones that are winning in the Northeast," Paul told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"The other thing that might happen in the Northeast, if we had a little more libertarian-leaning Republicans, they would have a chance in the Northeast," Paul said Wednesday reports Newsmax.

"But there's room for moderates, like Chris Christie, and he's got a place in the party."

But conservatives are still the driving force of the GOP, Paul says.

"Conservatives are a much bigger force than the moderates, but it doesn't mean that we want to exclude moderates from our party," he said.

Still, with a nod to Christie, Paul said moderate Republicans will have a tougher time getting the Republican nomination for president.

"The road to the nomination for a moderate is actually pretty difficult because a lot of the Republican primaries are very conservative," he said.

"And so, someone who's most well-known for grabbing up federal money as much as they can get, probably that kind of attitude may or may not go off so well in a Republican primary."

Paul says the Republican Party let down Ken Cuccinelli, the GOP candidate for governor of Virginia, who narrowly lost to Democrat Terry McAuliffe.

"Some of the establishment let us down in that race. If you look back to the race when [Bob] McDonnell won four years ago, the establishment put a lot more money in for McDonnell than they did for Cuccinelli," he said.

"Cuccinelli could have won if everybody had stuck with him . . . He got very darn close, people were coming his way. He just didn't have any money in the end.