Christie Could Have Been a Contender, Say Iowa and Other GOP Power Outsiders

Chris Christie could've been a contender. That's the message of the latest HuffPost-Patch Power Outsiders survey of politically engaged Republican activists in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The survey was conducted on the eve of the New Jersey governor's announcement that he would not run for president.

We asked 156 Republican political activists, party officials and officeholders in the early primary and caucus states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina about their initial impressions of Christie, using the same four questions we've asked in previous weeks about Mitt Romney, Rick Perry,Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin.

The Power Outsiders poll is an attempt to listen in on the "invisible primary" under way among influential local activists and political insiders that has historically driven the outcome of party nomination campaigns. This week, we heard from 37 Power Outsiders in Iowa, 53 in New Hampshire and 66 in South Carolina.

Their first impressions were largely favorable. We asked respondents to use one word to describe Christie. Fifty-seven percent of the words they offered were positive. The most frequent positive words were "bold," "strong," "direct" and "leader."

Another 12 percent of the words were near synonyms describing his personality, such as "blunt," "aggressive," "fiery," "feisty," "confrontational" and "bulldog." Many respondents likely intended these as positive, although some may have meant them as negative, so we broke this total out separately.

As with the other candidates, we heard many words (9 percent) that were either neutral or descriptive (such as "big" or "fat") or otherwise not easily interpreted as positive or negative (such as "moderate").

Only 16 percent of the words used to describe Christie were less ambiguously negative, including "unknown," "unproven" and "inexperienced."

More targeted questions show that the reaction to Christie on specific characteristics related to being a presidential candidate was largely positive as well. Nearly all (87 percent) said he takes stands on issues they agree with. Four out of five (80 percent) said he would make a good president. Three out of four (76 percent) said he could beat Barack Obama in a general election.

Overall, the favorable views of Christie on these questions fall a little short of what Romney registered, but are nearly identical to the reactions to Perry in early September just after he entered the presidential race. Christie's initial scores are just 3 percentage points higher than Perry's initial scores on taking agreeable stands on issues and making a good president and are identical on ability to beat Obama.

Power Outsiders is a Patch-Huffington Post project that surveys influential Republicans in the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Details on responses about Christie and a full list of participants can be found here.