Poll: Christie leaves as New Jersey’s most unpopular governor

Chris Christie will end his second term as the state’s most disapproved and disliked governor on record, according to a new poll from Rutgers’ Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling. 
Eagleton said Christie leaves as the state’s most unpopular governor since it began surveying the public almost five decades ago.
Poll participants gave Christie low marks across the board for his handling of the state’s economy, taxes, the state budget, education, transportation, infrastructure, the pension fund, crime and drugs.
Only 18 percent said they felt that Christie is leaving the state in better shape than when he came in, including 8 percent of Democrats, 18 percent of independents and 39 percent of Republicans. Meanwhile, 40 percent said that he is leaving the state in worse shape than he found it, with the remaining 37 percent seeing no change during Christie’s time in office.
Overall, Christie was given a “D+” for his time as governor, according to the poll.
Emeritus Rutgers Professor Dr. Cliff Zukin, a former director and now senior advisor to the poll, said that the only governor he polled on who rivaled Christie for unpopularity was Brendan Byrne, who died last week at 93. 
"Byrne ended up respected, with a third of the state giving him a rating of excellent or good when he was done. Of all the governors we’ve polled on in the last 47 years, Christie is the least popular governor at the end of his tenure. Chris Christie thought he could both effectively run the state and run for president. In the end, he failed at both,” Zukin said.
Statewide, 1,203 adults were contacted by live callers on both landlines and cell phones from Nov. 15 to Nov. 27 for the Rutgers-Eagleton poll. The sample has a margin of error of +/-3.0 percentage points. 
A breakdown of the poll’s full results can be found below: