“The Democrats never really figured out a way to knock him out before, and then when [Hurricane] Sandy came, he went from a Teflon coating to an armor coating,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. “As it stands right now, no one expects a Democrat to beat Chris Christie, so their real concern is that Christie could win by such a large margin that he has coattails to knock off folks down-ballot who otherwise would’ve had no worries.”…

Christie may now have work to do in rebuilding his image among many prominent GOP leaders who once viewed him as the party’s next best hope, but in Democratic-leaning New Jersey, he has become a unifying figure.

“There are issues the Democrats can use, but I just don’t think at this point in time that those issues are going to be sufficient to undermine or really damage the goodwill and reputation that Christie has built up over the last couple of years,” said Carl Golden, a senior analyst at the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy. “The governor has in the past three years positioned himself as a very strong leader, regardless of the issue.”