By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
True, Bill Clinton came out of nowhere to win his party’s’ presidential nomination, Save Jerseyans, but as FiveThirtyEight blog recently pointed out, Chris Christie’s name recognition is light years’ ahead of where Bill Clinton was at this point in the ’92 cycle.
A new Townhall/Gravis poll of 831 likely South Carolina Republican voters further underscores the base problems facing Gov. Christie, particularly in this early “first-in-the-South” primary state:
- W. Mitt Romney 20%
- John E. “Jeb” Bush 16%
- Scott Walker 9%
- Michael Huckabee 8%
- R. Edward “Ted” Cruz 8%
- Randal H. “Rand” Paul 7%
- Marco A. Rubio 7%
- Christopher J. Christie 5%
- Richard “Rick” Santorum 4%
- Richard “Rick” Perry 4%
“One complication is the on-again-off-again nature of the Romney campaign,” said Doug Kaplan, the managing partner of Gravis. “There is a strong chance that he will not run, especially given the nature of his wife’s health, so we ran a second poll without Romney.”
It would benefit Bush more than Christie; Bush leads with 18% in a Romney-less field, and both Huckabee and Walker improve to 11% while Governor Christie jumps only to 8%.
Another poll (from another polling org) had Chris Christie in 1st place shortly before his reelection in 2013.
Newt Gingrich won the GOP S.C. Primary in 2012. When the former Speaker met Christie in Iowa last weekend, he reportedly told the N.J. Governor to just “be [himself]” in the interest of winning. Might be advice worth taking…
It ain’t gonna happen. He will not do well in Iowa, slip in NH and this will be the end of the campaign. True, he might get some pick up from Romney’s votes, but the pack is far from settled.
Christie’s attitude will not fly in the South.
The fact this poll has him behind Huckabee makes it suspect.
new jersey doesn’t want him,let alone the rest of the country…