In what was termed as a landslide victory for Chris Christie last week in his re-election as the governor of New Jersey, Christie’s name has already begun to surface as the GOP’s probable candidate for the 2016 presidential elections.
    A new NBC News poll released Tuesday showed Hillary Clinton would start with a 10-point lead over Christie in a hypothetical 2016 presidential race, 44 percent to 34 percent, but a difference of 10 percent could easily be overtaken.
  The theories of wooing the minority voters made rounds after Obama’s re-election last year, and  many felt the GOP needs to do more to appease voters from different backgrounds if it wants to win back the White House.
   The growing number of immigrants who play a role in shaping American politics cannot be overlooked or denied. President Obama secured around 70 percent of the Latino vote in November 2012.
  The Huffington Post  reported in an article on Feb. 22 the possibility of 40 million Latino voters by the end of 2030 if immigration reform becomes a reality.
    While speaking to Fox News’s Chris Wallace on Sunday, Christie said, “At the end of the day, people in Washington, D.C., don’t understand that if you want to win a vote by that kind of margin, if you want to attract the majority of the Hispanic vote, if you want to nearly triple your African-American vote, you need to show up,” he said. “You need to go into those neighborhoods. You need to campaign in places. That’s the way the Republican party will make itself more relevant to a whole much broader group of folks. And the fact is, that’s exactly what Ronald Reagan would have done and did do when he was campaigning for president.”
   In January 2013, a PublicMind poll found that 73 percent of registered voters approved of the job Christie was doing as governor in the state of New Jersey. Leslie Baker, political science instructor at Mississippi State University, said she thinks Christie will run for office and has enough support.
    “It will be an interesting race. One reason for his popularity right now is that he’s pretty moderate, and a lot of Democrats like him. But in order to win, he’ll have to move to the right. That could cost him key independent support. The key in Christie’s race (if he gets the nomination) against Clinton will be who has the best fundraising and ground game,” Baker said.
   Jon Terbush, columnist at “The Week” questions whether Christie can win outside New Jersey. In his article on Nov. 12 titled “Chris Christie’s Provincial Problem,” Terbush said Republican respondents nationwide are equally split between Christie, anti-Christie and unsure. Christie has notably sparred with unions, slashed state spending and wagged his finger at teachers — all of which should win him support with conservatives. But he’s also developed a moderate image, dropped a challenge to gay marriage, endorsed some limited gun control reforms and suggested illegal immigrants be given in-state tuition rates.
    On the contrary, McCay Coppins, staff writer at buzzfeed.com said in an article on Nov. 8 one data point buried in the exit poll cross-tabs and not published in most news stories about the race might temper the hysteria.
   According to exit polls conducted by Edison Research, in a hypothetical 2016 contest between Christie and Clinton, the Republican governor’s support among minorities would drop sharply in his home state.
    The question put to New Jersey voters was: “If these were the candidates for president in 2016, for whom would you vote?”
   In a head-to-head matchup, Clinton would receive 57 percent of New Jersey Latinos’ votes and Christie would get 33 percent. The gap grows even wider with black voters: 86 percent said they would vote for Clinton, and just five percent would vote for Christie.
   One of the oldest democracies on the planet could witness a first woman president or an extremely popular governor as president in 2016 with the current hypotheses.
   If you can recall, there were fewer names thrown at you in 2009 for the 2012 presidential elections from within the GOP after the one-year completion of President Obama’s first term. Now there are way too many for 2016.
   What has changed? Is it Obama’s plummeting popularity rates or is it that the GOP has found its potential powerhouses?
   Political pundits could make a prediction, but only 2016 will tell if Christie is a real threat to Clinton’s White House aspirations.