Christie rises to top of potential 2016 field

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has overtaken Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul in The CHASE for the 2016 Republican nomination.

Christie’s ascension to the top slot of TheRun2016.com’s rolling monthly rankings of the presidential nomination battles comes after his crushing re-election victory earlier this month and a band of new polling charting his upswing.

A national Quinnipiac University survey released Nov. 13 granted Christie his first head-to-head polling edge over Hillary Clinton.  The 1-point advantage was well within the margin of error and likely ephemeral, but it marked the first time Clinton trailed in a 2016 poll this year.

While there hasn’t been new early state polling this month, numbers coming out of other states demonstrate the rise of Christie.

• A Nov. 20 Quinnipiac University general election poll of Colorado put Christie ahead of Clinton 46 percent to 38 percent. “Right now, Colorado voters say Gov. Christie is the only contender who would make a good president,” said Quinnipiac’s Tim Malloy.
• In Mississippi, one of the most conservative states in the country, Christie trails Ted Cruz only narrowly in the GOP primary, according to Public Policy Polling’s November survey.  Cruz nets 19 percent to Christie’s 17 percent — an impressive number for a northeast governor in a state that wouldn’t seem naturally hospitable.
• And while Quinnipiac shows Jeb Bush being the the most competitive opponent against Clinton in Florida, Christie is also in the game there, trailing the former Secretary of State by just 4 points.  That’s better than homestate Sen. Marco Rubio, who falls to Clinton by seven.  Christie is third in a GOP primary match-up in Florida (to Jeb & Marco), but given that it’s likely both of them won’t run, he’s likely to be in the fight there.

In addition, previous early state primary polling has shown Christie as one of the top horses in New Hampshire  and more surprisingly, South Carolina.

Christie becomes the third leader of The CHASE this year, with Rubio at the top in the spring and Sen. Rand Paul taking over in the summer.

The CHASE has also updated its calculations on who is most likely to run — bumping Christie now up to 80 percent, Cruz up to 55 percent and Rubio down to 80 percent (from 90 percent).

Ratings on the Democratic side stay the same.

Follow Dave’s blog at TheRun2016.com