Quinnipiac has been tracking the governor’s job approval. Unsurprisingly, Christie’s rating has fallen since its highs in early 2013. But perhaps surprisingly, even in an awfully blue state, where the story has been the most heavily covered, he’s still net-positive in his job approval: It’s now 49-44. It’s not even the worst showing of his career — that came in early 2011. Republicans support him, 82-14, and Independents back him by 54-39. He is, incidentally, more popular than President Obama, and the share of voters who say he would make a good president, though lower than in 2103, is higher than it was in 2010.

What this scandal has done is remove the more or less bipartisan support for Christie that emerged in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. But that’s mostly inevitable. We saw this happen to John McCain in 2008 once he became the face of the GOP, and we’re seeing it happen to Hillary Clinton today.

The one danger to Christie is that some smoking gun will emerge implicating him in the scandal. This is where the much-disparaged review of the case by the law firm of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher actually has some relevance. I think many analysts missed the point. This wasn’t a review to convince the public of Christie’s innocence — they are far too tuned out and distrustful of lawyers to buy into it.

What this was about was the “invisible primary” going on among donors, politicians and party apparatchiks.