So after a year of hugging President Obama, accepting Obamacare's Medicaid expansion, agreeing to gun restrictions, and refusing to challenge the court ruling that brought marriage equality to New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie has
apparently decided it's time to pivot to the 2016 GOP primary:
CNN anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent Jake Tapper caught up with Christie outside a New Jersey polling place, and asked the GOP governor, who's seriously considering a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, if he thought of himself as a moderate.
"I’m a conservative," Christie said. "I’ve governed as a conservative in this state, and I think that’s led to some people disagreeing with me in our state, because it’s generally a left-of-center, blue state."
In a lot of ways, Christie is actually right, particularly the first three years of his administration, but he certainly hasn't spent the last year talking about himself as a conservative, and the reason he's waiting until election day to do it is obvious: He wants to run for president, and to win the GOP nomination, he needs to move to the right. The problem for Christie is that as he moves to the right, his biggest asset—his perceived popularity with middle-of-the-road voters—will deteriorate.
Today's new national survey from PPP illustrates Christie's squeeze. Against Hillary Clinton, he trails by 5 points, which isn't great, but it's much better than the rest of the GOP's potential field. Ted Cruz, meanwhile, trails Hillary by 17 points.
But when you ask Republicans who they want to nominate, Christie manages just 16 percent. That's actually good enough to tie Rand Paul for the lead, but it's only one point better than Ted Cruz, two points better than Jeb Bush, and three points better than Paul Ryan. (Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, and Rick Santorum round up the field at 10, 6, and 5 points, respectively.)
Christie's challenge is that his core of support is among moderate Republicans in a party dominated by conservatives. And:
There are massive ideological splits in who Republicans support. Among voters identifying as 'very conservative' Christie gets only 3%, with Cruz leading at 26% followed by Paul at 18%, Bush at 15%, and Ryan at 13%. But with moderates Christie and Cruz's numbers are nearly flipped with Cruz getting only 5% to 36% for Christie, 18% for Bush, and 10% for Paul.
This is similar to Mitt Romney's problem in 2012. In order to win the nomination, Christie is going to have to move to the right, both by being more upfront about his conservative record than he has been over the past year, and by outlining a conservative agenda for a Christie presidency. Doing these things might help him within the GOP universe, but it's going to hurt him outside of the GOP, because they reason he's the most electable Republican is that he's perceived as being the least conservative and least partisan Republican. There's no way that image can survive a GOP primary, not with the GOP being what it is. And if he maintains that image, he can't win the primary. Nothing's impossible, but whichever of those scenarios plays out, Christie's in a tight squeeze.