New Jersey voters want Christie to step aside

The majority of New Jersey voters want Gov. Chris Christie (R) to resign his office now that he’s running for president.

Fifty-four percent of Garden State registered voters believe that Christie should step down, compared to 41 percent who want him to remain governor, according to a new Rutgers/Eagleton poll.

{mosads}But when those same voters are told about a bill pushed by Democratic legislators that would force all governors to resign after declaring for president, a majority think he should be allowed to stay.

“New Jerseyans want the governor to resign now that he is officially in the 2016 primary race – but they want him to do it on his own terms,” Ashley Koning, assistant director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University, said in a statement.

“While those here at home show little love for Christie or his presidential run, they are nevertheless against his Democratic opposition ousting him from office.”

Christie’s poll numbers had been slipping in his home state in the run-up to his presidential announcement in late June, and that sentiment hasn’t let up in the Rutgers poll. Fifty-three percent of registered voters believe that traveling across the country for his campaign has hurt his effectiveness, and 59 percent believe that his presidential ambitions are influencing whether he’ll sign state bills.

New Jersey Advance Media reported Monday that Christie has spent almost 55 percent of his year out of New Jersey.

The Eagleton poll also found that a majority of registered voters don’t believe Christie is presidential, according to data released earlier this week. 

Christie scored the ninth spot in last week’s Fox News debate, which hosted a forum with the top 10 candidates according to Fox News’s analysis of recent polling.

The Rutgers/Eagleton poll included responses from 757 registered voters between July 25 and Aug. 1 with a margin of error of 4 percent.