New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, whose unpolished, tough-talking style has brought him much national attention and made him a viral sensation, is often floated as a potential presidential candidate in 2012. A new Quinnipiac poll out today suggests Christie would face a tough time even in his home state.
According to the poll, a large majority of New Jersey voters don’t think their governor would make a good president. Sixty-three percent of respondents said Christie would not be a good commander-in-chief, while only 25% said he would be a good fit for the nation’s top job.
What’s more, most New Jersey voters don’t like the sound of “Vice President Christie” either. Just 32% of respondents said Christie would make a good veep, while 59% said he would not.
Those results come despite another finding in the poll that most voters in the state approve of the job Christie is doing as governor by a 46% to 44% margin. So while Christie’s constituents like what he’s doing for the Garden State, they’re not so sure he’d be a good choice to run the entire country.
If Christie can’t find support for a presidential bid in his own state, why is he frequently hyped as a strong 2012 challenger to Obama? The answer, according to the poll, is that it’s all gossip from inside the beltway.
The poll asked:
Sixty-five percent of voters responded that it was just gossip, while only 27% thought it was more substantive.
Sixty-five percent of respondents also said they didn’t think Christie would ultimately run for president anyway, versus 22% who said they believed he would toss his hat in the ring. Unlike many other possible candidates, Christie has unequivocally said that he does not want to run for president.
And though it’s still a long way to the 2012 election, two early polls show Christie trailing in head-to-head matches with Obama. A Fox News poll in late September showed Obama leading Christie 42% to 30%, and a PPP poll one month earlier pegged the gap at an even larger 47% to 31%.
The Quinnipiac poll was conducted December 14-19 among 1,276 New Jersey voters. It has a margin of error of 2.7%.
