Gov. Christie delivers 2011 budget address

Gov. Chris Christie feels the love from his son Andrew as he enters the Assembly Chamber to deliver his budget address in 2011. Voters are less inclined to embrace the governor these days, with Christie's approval ratings hitting lows not seen since that year. (Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-Ledger)

TRENTON — A majority of New Jersey voters now have an unfavorable impression of Gov. Chris Christie, according to a new Rutgers-Eagleton Poll, with just 42 percent of registered voters carrying a favorable impression of him — the lowest ever recorded by the poll.



By comparison, 45 percent of registered voters rate Christie unfavorably, with most of their ire developing in the last two months, during which he suffered a seven-point decline.



"What had seemed like a small rebound following Christie's Bridgegate ratings collapse now looks more like a temporary blip," said David Redlawsk, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling and professor of political science at Rutgers University.



While lingering in just-barely-positive territory, Christie's overall job approval rating is also dropping, falling three more points to 49 percent. By comparison, 46 percent of voters surveyed disapproved of his handling of his job, five points more than a January Eagleton poll.

Voters say taxes (24 percent), and the economy's effect on jobs (21 percent) are their top two concerns, followed by corruption and abuse of power (16 percent) and education (12 percent).



For the past eight months, Christie's ratings have been falling most sharply in three areas: Taxes (down 10 points to 33 percent approval), the economy (down three points to 38 percent) and education (down 10 points to 39 percent).



In addition, voters retain negative views of Christie's handling of the budget (down six points from a January 2014 poll, to 37 percent approval) and the pension crisis (24 percent approval, unchanged since first asked in August 2014.)



The one bright spot for Christie is his performance in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy: The public's view of his handling of the recovery has shown significant improvement, rebounding to 60 percent from 54 percent last February.



Despite Christie's highly publicized efforts on bail reform and de-stigmatizing drug addiction, as well as preventing it, approval of his handling of crime and drugs is up only two points, to 52 percent over nearly the same period.



"The last time New Jerseyans were more negative than positive toward Christie the pension reform bill had just been signed, Christie had begun pushing a voter-supported teacher-tenure package and, there had been no Superstorm Sandy," noted Redlawsk.



"But the good will he piled up after acting on those voter supported issues, and his handling of Sandy, has vanished. By nearly every measure we have, Christie is losing support."



Results are from a statewide poll of 842 New Jersey residents contacted by live callers on both landlines and cell phones from Sept. 29 to Oct. 5. This release reports on a subsample of 734 registered voters with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.2 percentage points.

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

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