New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie faces decreasing approval ratings as a result of the Bridgegate scandal, with Tuesday’s Fairleigh Dickinson University poll revealing an all-time low for Christie.
Christie now enjoys the support of 18 percent of voters according to the new poll. Christie earned a 21 percent approval rating in October, according to Politico.
“Governor Christie has been abandoned by virtually everyone, which is a far cry from where he once sat atop a field of aspiring presidential candidates who cut a more polarizing figure than he did,” poll director Krista Jenkins wrote in the accompanying statement.
It’s the lowest approval rating the poll has ever recorded since 2002, when the poll first started. Politico noted that the lowest approval rating found in New Jersey’s history was 17 percent, held by former Gov. Brendan Byrne in 1977, right after he signed the state income tax law. Byrne was able to win re-election only one year later.
Perhaps more surprising is the fact that now 52 percent of Republicans disapprove of Christie’s job performance, a sign that the former presidential contender is no longer in good standing with a majority of the party that elected him to office.
After Hurricane Sandy ravaged the shores of New Jersey in 2013, Christie’s approval rating soared to 73 percent, but respondents appeared to lay the controversial Bridgegate scandal in which Christie aides closed lanes of the George Washington Bridge as part of a political move directly at Christie’s feet.
Seventy-three percent of respondents reported they believe Christie should have been tried in court over the matter, instead of his aides. Only 23 percent of respondents believe that the right people were charged with the crime.
“Across the board we see disbelief in Governor Christie’s claims of ignorance about what his underlings were up to,” Jenkins said. “The only group who offers some degree of equivocation is Republicans, but even half of them say they believe the governor should have also been a defendant. Past surveys from FDU have found a majority of registered voters incredulous at the claim [Christie] he knew nothing until incriminating text messages and emails were made public.”
The poll included 836 registered voters, and ran from Nov. 30 through Dec. 4. The poll carried a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.
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