Stuck without a Trump job, Christie is back in New Jersey

With his own failed presidential campaign behind him and his support of Donald Trump unrewarded with a high-level post, Christie instead faces his eighth and final year as governor of New Jersey, where his approval ratings are a dreadful 19 percent.

"Gov. Christie has reached the nadir of both his popularity and his power, and, at this point, it appears there are few remaining opportunities to further his political career in any predictable way," said Montclair State University political science professor Brigid Harrison.

A former U.S. attorney who made a name for himself prosecuting political corruption, Christie swept into office in 2009 and governed with a blunt and often bruising style, tangling with ordinary people who dared challenge him in public.

In his seven years in office, a deal he made to shore up the public pension fund fell apart, a plan to change the school funding formula has stalled, and he has made little progress against the state's notoriously high property taxes.

Last month, a plan he pushed to raise the salaries of top state officials in exchange for letting him profit from a book deal while in office collapsed amid a public outcry.

Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, attributed the governor's low ratings to a number of factors, including Bridgegate, his backing of Trump in heavily Democratic New Jersey and a feeling among many people that the governor "has turned his back on the state and used it as a steppingstone for his own advancement."

Republican Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick, a close ally of the governor's, faulted the media for "trolling" for bad news about public officials.