TRENTON -- New Hampshire Republican presidential primary winner Donald Trump said Gov. Chris Christie called him on Tuesday evening and the two "had a long talk" in which the New Jersey governor expressed disappointment that his weekend GOP debate performance hadn't translated into better results at the polls.

Trump won the Republican primary handily Tuesday night with more than 35 percent of the vote, while Christie finished a distant sixth place with 7.5 percent of the vote as of 9 a.m. Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.

Christie is returning to New Jersey Wednesday to await a final tally that will inform whether he presses on to South Carolina or formally suspends his White House campaign.

Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Trump praised Christie for doing "an amazing job" in Saturday night's eighth Republican presidential debate, during which the governor repeatedly hammered U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida for repeatedly relying on memorized, non-sequitur answers attacking President Obama rather than answering moderators' questions directly.

Asked by "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough if he'd reached out to Christie, Trump answered that "He'd actually called me last night," adding that "he's a little disappointed because he really did do a great job, he did an amazing job during that debate. I was witness to it because I was standing next to Marco -- who I like very much -- and, you know, it was a strange kind of a situation going on there."

After Rubio used the same line four times in a row, Christie had pounced on the freshman senator, "There it is, there it is, the memorized 25-second speech," Christie jeered. "There it is, everybody."

Trump said that, standing on stage and watching Rubio's doll-with-a-pull-string moment was "a little bit strange" but that "Marco understands that and he'll be able to fix it, I hope."

Speaking to his own crestfallen supporters in New Hampshire Tuesday evening, Rubio acknowledged that his robotic responses on the debate stage had played a key part in his fifth place finish in the first primary, vowing that "It's on me. ... We did not do well on Saturday and so listen to this: That will never happen again."

Claude Brodesser-Akner may be reached at cbrodesser@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ClaudeBrodesser. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.