Gov. Christie Has 128th Town Hall Meeting at Moorestown Recreation Center

Gov. Chris Christie.

(Aris Economopoulos/NJ Advance Media)

TRENTON -- Gov. Chris Christie's polling woes continue to grow as a new national poll released Monday showed the governor may have actually lost ground among Republicans since he announced his 2016 presidential campaign.

The governor's support among GOP voters dropped to 2 percent since he formally entered the race on June 30, according to a Monmouth University Poll. Christie's support is down from 4 percent in a similar poll conducted in June.

"While Christie's two-point drop may be statistically insignificant, it could be meaningful if other polls also place him out of the top ten and thus off the stage for the first debate next month," according to the Monmouth University Polling Institute.

Fox News has said only the top 10 candidates in a series of national polls will make the cut for its Aug. 6 debate. The new Monmouth Poll puts Christie tied with three others for ninth place.

The survey could be bad news for Christie for another reason: political experts say presidential candidates usually get a bump in the polls after announcing they're running for the White House.

"This field is so large that (initial bumps from announcements) hasn't happened for every candidate, but in the cases that it hasn't happened ... they were candidates that didn't have high name recognition to begin with. But all these better-know candidates, when they got into it they got a bump," said poll director Patrick Murray.

"It's problematic," he said. "In this case, the reaction seems to be, 'Yeah, we already know who you are and what we think of you.'"

The poll found Christie's unfavorable rating among Republican voters - 45 percent - is the highest of the GOP field. Only 25 percent said they viewed Christie favorably. Businessman Donald Trump has the second highest unfavorable rating at 41 percent, but overall, voters put him in second place when asked who they support.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush leads the pack of GOP presidential candidates with 15 percent, followed by Trump at 13 percent, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas at 9 percent, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker at 7 percent, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 7 percent, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida at 6 percent, former neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 6 percent and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky at 6 percent.

According to the poll, Christie is tied with former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. He is of ahead former Hewlett Packer CEO Carly Fiorina, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, and former New York Gov. George Pataki.

Christie's national standing among GOP voters has dropped in every poll Monmouth University conducted since December 2014, when he had a 36 percent favorable rating and 34 percent unfavorable.

The national poll comes as Christie's New Jersey polling finds the governor continues to hit historic lows. His New Jersey job approval is lower than his Democratic predecessor, Gov. Jon Corzine, had when Christie defeated him in 2009.

Christie's approval rating dropped to 30 percent, with more than half polled -- 55 percent -- saying they disprove of the job he's doing, according to the Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind survey. The approval rating is a six-percentage point drop from a similar poll PublicMind conducted in April.

The Monmouth University Poll was conducted by phone between July 9 and 12. It surveyed 1,001 adults in the United States who identified as Republicans. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.4 percent.

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Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or on Facebook. Follow NJ.com Politics on Facebook.