Gov. Christie Town Hall Meeting at Iowa Startup Accelerator

Gov. Chris Christie. (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media)

(Aristide Economopoulos/NJ Advance Media)

-- More than two and a half years after Hurricane Sandy pushed his approval rating to an

Gov. Christie's polls are now

seemingly every month. To better understand his precipitous slide, NJ Advance Media asked a quartet of top Garden State pollsters to describe the governor's plummeting polls in a single word -- and to explain why they chose it.

"Unsurprising."

Jenkins explains that "his post-Sandy numbers were artificially high," and that "coupled with Bridgegate and the fact that two senior staffers are under federal indictment" as well as "long-standing problems in New Jersey" facing "a Republican governor in a heavily Democratic state" Christie was always due for a plunge.

"Reasonable." -- David Redlawsk, director of polling at Rutgers University's Eagleton Institute

"He's just not paying any attention to New Jersey, and voters don't like that," Redlawsk said. "The economy keeps popping up, as do taxes. Vetoing taxes and spending is not the same as setting an agenda -- and I think people would be hard-pressed to say what the agenda is."

"Corzine." -- Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute

"These are the numbers that defeated Jon Corzine," Murrary said. "Except in this case, they aren't rejecting a governor's policies; they think he's treating New Jersey as an afterthought. It hasn't escaped their notice that he went to court to overturn what he said was his biggest accomplishment, pension reform. New Jerseyans are at the least disappointed and among those who supported him, really ticked off."

"Presidency." -- Maurice Carroll, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll

"He's distracted by the Presidency. He's out of state -- a lot," Carroll said. "Bridgegate I always thought was over-blown (as a polling issue), but killing the (ARC) tunnel, and not solving the pension problem, they didn't help, either. Polls say switching the state pensions to 401k's is probably a good idea, but he hasn't been around to push it. But if his dream of the Presidency is really dead, the last two years might just be interesting. He's very good at politics, after all."

Claude Brodesser-Akner may be reached at cbrodesser@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @claudebrodesser. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.