Poll: Christie’s Favorability Rating Drops

A recent survey finds that, for the first time since August of 2011, more New Jersey voters have an unfavorable impression of Gov. Chris Christie than a favorable one. 

"Forty-two percent of registered voters now feel favorable, while 45 percent are unfavorable. This is the first time in over three years that Christie is what we would call net-negative on the favorability rating," said Dave Redlawsk, the director of the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll.

Redlawsk said this represents a 7 percent decline in favorability in just the past two months.

On the issue of job approval, Redlawsk said Christie's rating is a bit more favorable.

"The governor maintains a slightly positive rating. We now have 49 percent saying they approve of his job performance overall, while 46 percent disapprove, and this is also a decline in support over the past several months," Redlawsk said.

So why is the governor losing support? Redlawsk said a couple of big issues stand out.

"New Jerseyans remain very concerned about taxes - 24 percent say that's the number one problem, and the economy, 21 percent call that the number one problem," he said. "Corruption and abuse of power, which jumped up after Bridgegate, is now third, at 16 percent, and education follows."

Redlawsk said that over the past eight months, Christie has lost support among New Jerseyans in the area of taxes as well.

"On taxes his rating has dropped about 10 points to 33 percent approval, on the economy it's down 3 points to 38, and on education he down another 10 points to 39 percent," Redlawsk said of the poll results.

Redlawsk also said the Bridgegate lane-closing scandal pulled Christie's approval ratings way down earlier this year. The ratings then went up a bit, but the fact that he's trending downward in favorability "is a really strong indicator that..that little uptick may have simply been a blip."

The poll finds the only area where the governor's approval ratings are significantly up is for recovery from Superstorm Sandy.

The results are from a stateside poll of 842 Garden State residents from Sept. 29 to Oct. 5.