Chris Christie’s Popularity Remains High In New Jersey

Conservatives may consider him RINO, but New Jersey residents seem to like Chris Christie just fine:

A new poll shows Republican Gov. Chris Christie continues to receive stellar approval ratings as his likely Democratic opponent, state Sen. Barbara Buono, struggles for name recognition.

The Quinnipiac University poll released this morning pegs Christie’s approval at 70 percent – down only slightly from 74 percent in February.

On the other hand, 79 percent of voters haven’t heard enough about Buono to form an opinion.

In a head-to-head match up, Christie leads Buono by 35 points, 60 percent to 25 percent.

“Who is that woman? Everybody knows Christie and hardly anyone knows Sen. Barbara Buono, even though she’s running an energetic, endorsement-rich campaign,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

Christie completely dominates with Republicans, leading Buono 90 percent to 4 percent with that group. But Buono loses a significant chunk of Democrats to Christie, leading him just 53 percent to 29 percent among members of her own party.

The poll also shows that most voters are not concerned that Christie is overweight. Sixty-percent say they’re comfortable with an overweight candidate, while 17 percent say they have reservations about it.

The poll also finds strong support for same-sex marriage in the Garden State:

The poll, which was conducted from March 19 to March 24, also shows New Jersey residents approve of gay marriage by more than a two-to-one margin, 64 percent to 30 percent – the highest ever in a Quinnipiac poll, and up from 57 percent a year ago.

An even larger majority, 72 percent, think it’s a good idea to decide the issue by a ballot question – a method many gay rights advocates oppose because they say it’s a civil rights issue that should not be left up to voters.

Christie is on the record, at least at the moment, as opposing same-sex marriage, but has said that he supports a ballot initiative to let the voters of New Jersey decide the issue.

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Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Tsar Nicholas says:

    The 7th graf of that quoted fluff piece is priceless. So you’re OK voting for fatso, eh? Geez. Can you fathom the reaction if a GOP polling outfit asked voters in a state with a Democrat governor whether they were comfortable with an old candidate (if the Dem happened to be old), or a fat candidate (if the Dem so happened to be fat), or a disabled candidate (if the Dem happened to be disabled)? Yikes.

    In any event, let’s go ahead and presume that it’s 2015 and Christie tosses his hat into the presidential ring. Could he get through the horrible demographics of the GOP’s primary selectorate? The prospects in that respect would appear at best to be questionable.