(ABOVE: Christie's most embarrassing moment of 2016 came when he referred to his home state as "down there" as he campaigned in New Hampshire during a winter storm that created worse flooding than Hurricane Sandy in Cape May County. Contrary to what he told this girl, the barrier islands were indeed still flooded when he headed back to New Hampshire to watch a football game.)

I see Chris Christie will be giving the State of the State address Tuesday.

I have a question: Which state?

The governor stopped paying attention to New Jersey long ago. He spent a good chunk of 2015 and 2016 campaigning in other states and only ended up back here in Jersey because he failed to get a good job offer in D.C.

That led directly to his plunge in the polls, according to Pat Murray of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.

"There's no question that when Bridgegate hit his numbers dropped, but they leveled off fast when he was in mid- to high-40s," said Murray. "He only went below 20 percent because people felt he'd turned his back on the state."

Or in other words, Christie lost his popularity because he turned his job into a popularity contest.

Then last week his influence fell to a new low.

That occurred when his designated heir-apparent, Assemblyman Jon "Hamlet" Bramnick of Union County, decided not to enter the race for the GOP nomination.

I liken Bramnick to the Danish prince because of his seeming inability to make a decision. Christie permitted him to pose before the cameras at the front of the New Jersey delegation at the GOP convention. But right up till Election Day Bramnick could never decide whether to back the party nominee, Donald Trump.

After Trump won, that looked like a bad move - but not as bad as the position taken by the two remaining top contenders for the nomination, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and Somerset County Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli.

Both came out against the Donald. That won't help either appeal to a Republican Party base that gave Trump 80 percent of the vote in the June primary.

That leaves an opening for an outsider, and Murray suggested that outsider could be a former "Saturday Night Live" comedian who now has a morning radio talk show, Joe Piscopo.

"I started listening to his radio show and I think he can have a real appeal part against and establishment person," Murray said. "I see a real potential for an outsider."

So do I, particularly if the establishment person is Guadagno.

I've been covering the lieutenant governor since 2009 and I have yet to hear her express anything that could be classified as an idea. She spent seven years blindly obeying the governor and now wants the voters to believe that in the eighth year she opposes his policies on such issues as the recent hike in the gas tax.

Really? During much of that fight over the gas tax she actually was the governor, a job she inherits every time Christie leaves the state. But she has yet to exercise that by, for example, vetoing a bill she dislikes.

Imagine Guadagno had vetoed the gas tax while Christie was out on the campaign trail. That would have catapulted her to national fame. Alas, she is more comfortable ducking controversy than seeking it out.

That's hardly the recipe for beating her fellow Monmouth County resident, former Goldman-Sachs executive Phil Murphy, who is the likely Democratic nominee.

At the moment it looks like the only Democrat who'd have even an outside chance of beating Murphy is Piscopo.

You heard that right. Piscopo told the New York Post's Cindy Adams last week that he's "A lifelong Democrat who'll go in as a Republican because the Democrats are all taken."

Adams also quoted Piscopo as saying he has started to raise money for the race. But later in the week he told our own Claude Brodesser-Akner that he hasn't started fund-raising just yet.

Well, he'd better start soon. That goes for the rest of the field as well. Primary candidates have a mere three months to raise the $430,000 needed to qualify for matching funds.

That's a lot of dough. And all the hopefuls appear to be hopeless compared to the last guy to mount a meaningful challenge in a Republican primary.

"By this time in 2009 I'd already set up an office with a staff and was ready to meet the goal for matching funds," said Steve Lonegan, who gave Christie a good run in that year's primary.

Raising that money and meeting the other reporting requirements was more than a full-time job, Lonegan recalled. There were points at which his staff was putting in 24-hour shifts just handling the paperwork, he said.

If the Republicans are in bad shape for the governor's race, it could be even worse in the legislative races. All 120 seats are up this year and the party has actually lost seats during Christie's two terms.

In 2013, he ran up a 21-point personal landslide while failing to carry a single seat in the Legislature.

So that's the real State of the State:

Democratic for the next four years barring a miracle.

(BELOW: I have no idea how he'd do in a governor's race, but a least Piscopo had the common sense not to come out against the Republican Party's nominee for president.