Voters on Christie's job performance: 46 percent approve, 44 percent disapprove
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie pauses during a statehouse news conference on October 7th 2010.New Jersey voters narrowly sided with state Senate Democrats in their ongoing dispute with Gov. Chris Christie over the state Supreme Court, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
Thirty-seven percent of Garden State registered voters said by refusing to start the confirmation process on Christie’s nominee, Anne Murray Patterson, the state Senate is "protecting an independent judiciary." Thirty-two percent said the senators were "foot dragging." In a November Quinnipiac poll, voters were split 35 percent to 35 percent on the question.
Christie nominated Patterson in May instead of re-nominating Justice John Wallace, Jr. because he thought the court had become too activist.
"Public opinion is running against Gov. Christie on this issue and his overall approval rating has eroded a bit since our last look," said poll director Maurice Carroll.
Fourty-five percent said it is a bad idea for Christie to "change a historically liberal state Supreme Court," while 39 percent said it was a good idea.
The flap over the Wallace appointment has led to a crisis on the court, with Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto pledging to abstain on all future cases because he believes the elevation of chief appellate division judge Edwin H. Stern to temporarily fill Wallace’s old seat is unconstitutional.
The poll also found:
• Voters split almost evenly on Christie’s job performance, with 46 percent approving of his performance and 44 percent disapproving — down from 51 percent approving to 38 percent disapproving last month. "He’s a conservative Republican governor in a pretty much blue state," said Carroll. "You’d much rather be high than low, but it’s still positive, and to me that’s pretty good in this place." A Rutgers-Eagleton poll released Monday showed 56 percent of voters rating Christie’s job performance either "fair" or "poor."
• Voters agree with Christie‘s decision to kill a rail tunnel project to New York City, and think a proposal for New York to expand its No. 7 subway line to Secaucus is a good idea.
• Three-quarters of voters think adults should be able to use medical marijuana if prescribed by a doctor, but the question did not delve into details of New Jersey’s medical marijuana law, and regulations critics say are too restrictive.
• While voters narrowly disapprove of how Christie has handled education, they overwhelmingly support his plan to limit pay for superintendents and have an unfavorable view of Christie’s political enemy, the New Jersey Education Association.
The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute surveyed 1,276 New Jersey registered voters from Dec. 14 to Dec. 19. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.