For this first time since taking office, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has
a net negative approval rating in the Farleigh Dickinson University PublicMind Poll, with just 41 percent of New Jersey adults saying they approve of his job performance while 44 percent say they disapprove.
The poll, which was conducted from March 3 to 9 and has a margin of error of ±3.9 points, reveals a major turn for the worse in Christie's approval rating. In November, 61 percent said they approved of his performance and 24 percent said they disapproved, so his current rating is a net negative swing of 40 points in just four months.
Arguably the most important part of the story for Christie is that New Jersey Democrats no longer hold him in high regard: Among Democrats, his approval is just 24 percent, with 65 percent disapproving. That's a huge problem for Christie, because his crossover appeal was the centerpiece of his claim to the GOP's 2016 presidential nomination.
Without another major inflection point, it's hard to see how these numbers could turn around for him. And the irony here is quite fitting: Christie's attempts to squeeze out every last drop of Democratic support that he could get—if that's what motivated the lane closures—appears to have cost him much of the support he already had.