He's still the front-runner in his re-election run, thanks to a huge bankroll, celebrity-worship media coverage and the advantages of incumbency. But his once overwhelming poll lead has shrunk a bit as the campaign has come to a close. Where a mid-October Quinnipiac survey gave the governor a 33-point lead over Democrat Barbara Buono, and a Richard Stockton College survey from last week had him up 24 points, the latest poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University had him up just 19 points.
That's a wide margin. But it is striking that, as the election comes closer, and as Christie dramatically increases his spending and campaigning, his numbers are declining.
Maybe it has something to do with treatment of teachers.
Since becoming governor in 2010, Christie done a lot of yelling at teachers.
Not long after his election, Christie coupled his constant criticism of New Jersey Education Association union members with cuts that have made it harder for the targets of that criticism to do their jobs. "New Jersey public schools have been underfunded by the State by an astonishing $5.2 billion since 2010," observes Julia Sass Rubin, PhD, an associate professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, who is a founding member of the group Save Our Schools NJ. She goes on:
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"This shortfall has been most severe in school districts populated primarily by children of color. For example, the Paterson, Elizabeth, and Newark school districts combined lost over $300 million since 2010. If the New Jersey Supreme Court had not intervened in 2012 to restore some of the funding, the damage would have been even greater. Gov. Chris Christie also tried repeatedly to permanently alter the State's school funding formula, to reduce funding for the almost 40 percent of New Jersey public school students who are low-income and/or Limited English Proficient."
When teachers have questioned Christie, he has not responded well.
Early in his tenure, the governor was so belligerent that Marie Corfield, an art teacher at Robert Hunter Elementary School in Flemington, confronted him at a town hall meeting and declared: "New Jersey has some of the best schools in the country, and this administration has done nothing but lambaste us and tell us what horrible schools we have."
When Christie started to pick at her, Corfield announced: "I'm going back to work."
A video of the confrontation went viral and the teacher from Flemington is now a top Democratic candidate for the New Jersey Assembly who says New Jersey has "a governor who leads by intimidation and not diplomacy. That is not the hallmark of a strong leader. We have been fighting against that. We are fighting against bullying instead of real leadership."
Christie's record on education issues -- and on respect for teachers -- is so atrocious that Diane Ravitch, the author and analyst of education debates, has urgently endorsed the governor's Democratic challenger, state Senator Barbara Buono. Though Ravitch notes the Democratic legislator's impressive resume and platform, she also says:
"[Buono's] first qualification is that she is not Chris Christie. Christie has divided the state, neglected its poorest communities (other than to try to privatize their public schools), and bullied people he doesn't agree with. He disdains public schools (calling them "failure factories") and scorns the people who work in them every day to educate the children of New Jersey. He is ignorant of the fact that the public schools of New Jersey are ranked near the very top on federal tests. He actively promotes policies that segregate and disempower people of color in New Jersey. I shudder to think of an America in which someone with the character of Chris Christie were considered a role model."
That's not the sort of review any governor should want -- especially one who is positioning himself for re-election and then a presidential run.
But Christie can't control his urge to bash teachers.
On Saturday, as he finished a day of campaigning across New Jersey, the governor ran into Melissa Tomlinson, a veteran teacher who asked Christie: "Why do you continue to spread the myth that our schools and teachers are failing?"
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