Just 1% of Arizona Republicans support Christie for President, new poll shows

There’s good and bad news for former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in a new poll of Arizona Republicans testing potential candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

The good news for Christie is that he is tied with Marco Rubio for 8th place with one percent of the vote among potential candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024  in a new Arizona Public Opinion Pulse survey conducted by O.H. Predictive Insights released yesterday.  Recent national and early state polling had put Christie at zero percent.

But the 45% of Republicans in Arizona would leave the GOP presidential race disappointed if Christie were to become the nominee.   Just 13% said they would be satisfied to see Christie advance to the general election.

Donald Trump leads Ron DeSantis in Arizona by 16 percentage points, 42%-26%.

Mike Pence is at 8%, followed by Nikki Haley and Liz Cheney, each at 5%.  Ted Cruz gets 3%, and Mike Pompeo at 2%.  Glenn Youngkin and Kristie Noem trailed with zero percent.

“Trump and DeSantis are currently the clear top dogs for the 2024 presidential bid,” said Mike Noble, OHPI chief of research.  “Any other contender hoping to battle for the GOP nomination will need to make a big splash with Republicans soon, before campaign dollars start to come into effect.”

Nearly half of Arizona Republicans (48%) say they would rather see Republicans think and behave more like Donald Trump, while 30% prefer candidates act more like their former Republican governor, Doug Ducey.

“DeSantis appears to be a suitable bridge between the Trump and non-Trump wings of the GOP,” Noble said.

Six in ten GOP voters who say there is room for Trump in today’s Republican party would be satisfied if DeSantis were the nominee, alongside 54% of Republicans who do not want Trump in the party. Only 10% of Room-for-Trump-Republicans would be dissatisfied with DeSantis if he were to win the nomination, along with 24% of No-Room-for-Trump-Republicans.

Among Room-for-Trump Republicans, 13% would be fine with Christie – the same percentage that says they would be okay with Kanye West as the nominee.   But among those who say there is No-Room-for-Trumpers,  16% would be satisfied with Christie and just 2% for Kanye.

The O.H. Predictive Insights Poll was conducted between January 31 and February 9 from a statewide sample of 1,000 registered Republicans and has a margin of error of +/- 3.1%.