Clinton led Christie by a mere 3 percentage points, 48 percent to his 45 percent. | AP Photos Poll: Clinton widens lead on Christie

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pulled sharply ahead of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in a hypothetical match between the two potential presidential candidates, leading him by 13 percentage points, according to a new poll released Wednesday.

The NBC News/Marist poll has Clinton leading Christie with 50 percent of registered voters surveyed saying they’d vote for her if she were up against the New Jersey governor; just 37 percent of those would back Christie against Clinton.


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The poll presents sharp gains for Clinton in the last month; in the same survey in December, Clinton led Christie by a mere 3 percentage points, 48 percent to his 45 percent.

The new numbers comes after the revelation that top Christie aides were involved in malicious lane closures on the George Washington Bridge. The survey showed, however, that the scandal hasn’t significantly hurt Christie’s favorability rating among voters. Moreover, 68 percent of registered voters participating in the survey say their opinion of him hasn’t changed in light of the controversy.

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The poll of 1,039 registered voters was conducted Jan. 12 to 14 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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