Chris Christie (ABACAUSA.COM)
WASHINGTON — There’s a battle of the Hudson brewing in national politics — and Gov. Cuomo is getting clobbered.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie would trounce Cuomo, 45 percent to 28 percent, should they wind up facing each other in a 2016 race for the White House, according to a new Quinnipiac University Poll.
That’s a much weaker showing against Christie than that of Vice President Joe Biden, whom the Jersey gov barely beats, 43 to 40.
One reason Christie does so well against Cuomo is that he crushes the New Yorker among crucial independents, 47 to 20.
In their home states, Christie has sky-high approval ratings while Cuomo’s once-stratospheric New York numbers have come back to earth after he pushed through the nation’s toughest gun-control law in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre.
But Cuomo did manage to retain his popularity in New York among Democratic and liberal fans even as he lost support among Republicans, independents and conservatives, according to an NBC New York, Wall Street Journal and Marist College poll.
It found that 41 percent of New Yorkers think Cuomo’s new gun- control law is “about right”; 30 percent say it went too far; and 19 percent felt the gun law didn’t go far enough.
But 56 percent said Cuomo was doing a good or excellent job, compared with 59 percent in October.
The Quinnipiac poll’s real star was Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrat who is running strongest against anyone in the Republican field.
She’d beat Christie, 45 to 37; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, 50 to 34; and Mitt Romney’s 2012 running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, 50 to 38, according to the poll.
Christie’s strong showing among the Republicans comes even as he’s taken heat from the conservative arm of the party over his praise for President Obama in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
“Although some Republicans don’t think Christie is conservative enough for their taste, he runs best of the three Republicans tested and would defeat two of the top Democrats,” said Peter Brown, who conducted the poll.
Cuomo and Rubio are locked in a 37-37 tie, while Cuomo would lose to Ryan, 42 to 37.
Clinton “would start a 2016 presidential campaign with enormous advantages,” Brown said .
The poll also had bad news for Obama, whose approval rating of 45 percent is down from a post-election high of 53.
But Republicans in Congress fared even worse after the fight over the sequester budget cuts.
They have a 71-percent disapproval rating. Even only 38 percent of fellow GOPers approve of their performance.