Someone better tell voters in the South that Chris Christie’s New Jersey attitude isn’t supposed to sell well there.
A Conservative Intel/Harper Polling survey of 710 likely GOP primary voters in Mississippi found Chris Christie leading by a hair. You read that right. In Mississippi.
Christie edges out Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the survey by the tiniest of margins, 15.72 percent to 15.58 percent. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is right behind them with 14.45 percent.
Those three are then followed by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, with 11.61 percent, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, with 10.34 percent, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, with 9.49 percent, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, with 3.97 percent, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, with 1.70 percent. Just over 17 percent of respondents said they weren’t yet sure who they supported.
The poll has a 3.68 percent margin of error.
This is the latest in a series of polls by Conservative Intel/Harper Polling that show Christie leading among potential 2016 presidential candidates in various states. An October poll showed Christie leading in South Carolina and a November poll showed him at the top of the heap in Iowa. In both polls, Cruz was well within the margin of error of Christie’s lead.
Three recent polls — Quinnipiac University, McClatchy-Marist and CNN/ORC — also showed Christie leading nationally among potential 2016 GOP contenders.
While Christie tends to do the best among the potential contenders in hypothetical head-to-head match-ups against Hillary Clinton, he is not without his problems. A recent Des Moines Register poll, for instance, showed Christie with the highest negatives of any top GOP presidential contender in Iowa.
Polls taken three years before any primary election contest will actually occur aren’t perfect, either. Just ask Rudy Giuliani, who consistently led national Republican primary polls for much of 2007, only to fail to win a single primary when voters actually cast ballots in 2008.
