But it goes back farther than Bridgegate. At the heart of Christie’s poll numbers, Rollins and two pollsters said, was the governor’s appearance with and praise for President Obama when he visited the state in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, just days before Obama easily defeated Romney and won re-election. There never was an actual physical embrace, but the moment became etched in political memory as the Obama “hug.”

“He had initially survived Bridgegate. Most Republicans saw that as a Democratic witch hunt,” Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray said. “But then they didn’t see anything else about him that they particularly seemed to like. And they turned around and went to the Obama hug as the kind of key benchmark for them as what Chris Christie stood for.

“Republicans were holding their noses about that a year ago. They thought they needed to win back the White House,” Murray said. “It became apparent to them that there were other options. That’s when they were willing to admit to themselves that perhaps they didn’t like Christie very much.”