It wasn’t so long ago that Chris Christie was a remarkably popular governor of New Jersey, which is why, to hear him tell it, the good people of the Garden State don’t want him abandoning them for the White House. According to a Rutgers-Eagleton Poll released Thursday, Christie’s small sliver of support in the state he governs has slipped to 5 percent among GOP voters. But then, his local support has been slipping for a while.
Ignoring that, Christie instead remembers the good times, when things were going well and he was adored. “They want me to stay,” Mr. Christie said on Fox News this year. “I’ve heard that from lots of people at town hall meetings. ‘Don’t leave to run for president because we want you to stay.’”
The Rutgers poll points out that 54 percent of the party thinks he should hang up his presidential ambitions. It gets even worse when the poll analyzes independent and Democratic bases. “Well over half of virtually every demographic group believes Christie should call it a day,” according to the poll’s analysis.
Respondents blame his lack of effort for the job he was elected to do more than all of the scandals. “I don’t think he is working for New Jersey anymore,” said one voter. “New Jersey is not a success story, and people know it,” another reasoned.
Meanwhile, FEC filing indicates that Christie raised a measly $4.2 million in the last three months, leaving him with just $1.4 million cash in hand. As The Wall Street Journal notes, this places Christie at the back of the pack in fund-raising, just seventh out of the eight campaigns that have released their numbers so far.
Jersey Republicans’ No. 1 pick? Donald Trump, at 32 percent (followed by Ben Carson and Senator Marco Rubio, tied at 13 percent).
