Chris Christie’s Poll Numbers Stink: Should He Just Be Patient?

Floundering at the bottom of the top 10 in most polls, Gov. Chris Christie is struggling to keep his presidential run viable.

He has gone “all in” in New Hampshire, but even in the Granite State, Christie is barely in the top 10. Political experts differed on what the governor should do next now that he has two GOP presidential debates under his belt.

“The question is, ‘What could he be doing differently?’ and I don’t know that there is anything that he could be doing differently,” said Brigid Harrison, a political science professor at Montclair State University.

We’ve all heard that patience is a virtue and another political expert said Christie needs to adopt that virtuel because voters are still getting to know the candidates and the first presidential caucus in Iowa is still over four months away.

“He has to be patient because a number of the candidates are just going to top out and then decline,” said Fairleigh Dickinson University political science professor Peter Woolley. “Donald Trump has probably neared the maximum amount of support he can get. Ben Carson has neared the maximum amount of support he can get.”

Voters already know Christie and the polls prove they don’t like him much, Harrison said. She also explained that there were problems with the governor’s town hall game plan.

“He has demonstrated that this town hall style politics works in New Jersey and so he’s kind of put all of his chips into that strategy in New Hampshire, but now we’re seeing that it really is not paying off, that he’s not seeing that slow edge up in the polls yet and the reality is that even if he is able to be successful in New Hampshire and do better than expected you can’t win the presidency on the town hall strategy,” Harrison said.

Harrison said campaign donors are also looking at Christie's sagging poll numbers and questioning whether or not he is a candidate with a chance to win. Woolley said the governor didn’t need to adopt a new strategy. He just needs to play the waiting game.

“Christie just has to hope that he can hang around long enough to be one of those candidates who gets a second look and gets people interested in him again,” Woolley said.