Poll: Republicans don't want Christie to run in 2016

The New York Times just released a poll on who Americans would like to see run for president in 2016 and check out these numbers on current GOP preferences:

New York Times (pdf). February 19-23, 2014. Republicans. MoE 4.3±.

Not only is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie the only one of those five candidates under water, he's also the candidate who generates the most opinions. Only 28 percent of Republicans didn't answer or said they didn't know enough to have a preference. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was the only other hopeful in that neighborhood, but his net "should run" numbers were 24 points better than Christie's.

Based on those numbers, maybe closing three lanes of traffic on the George Washington Bridge to try to pressure Democrats into helping you run up the score in your gubernatorial re-election campaign isn't such a great presidential election strategy after all.

The poll asked the same question of Democrats, testing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Among Democrats, 82 percent say they want Hillary to run compared with 13 percent who don't. Biden and Warren were both in positive territory with a net "should run" of 3 and 5 points respectively. More than 80 percent didn't have an opinion on O'Malley and of the 36 percent who have an opinion on Cuomo, slightly more than half think he shouldn't run.