Slowly and yet all at once, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s, R, reputation as a tough-talking, talented politician is in a shambles. And perhaps nowhere is that the case more than back home in New Jersey.

But it’s an open question whether Christie even cares.

On Tuesday, the editorial boards of six USA Today network newspapers in the state simultaneously called for him to resign or be recalled. Hours later, he became an Internet meme for his awkward embrace of Donald Trump. His about 30 percent approval ratings in polls (one that was released Wednesday) are the lowest since Christie became governor in 2010, though his ratings have been trending that way for months now. It’s conventional wisdom among some New Jersey residents that the state’s first-ever lieutenant governor has been the one running the state while Christie shops for a new job.

Christie, frankly, hasn’t done much to dissuade that perception. At a Monday press conference, he refused to answer questions from local reporters about his support for Trump, a seemingly mismatched endorsement that some in New Jersey saw as the latest example of the governor tending to his own future rather than the state’s.

A record-low 29 percent of New Jersey residents think the state is on the right track, according to Wednesday’s Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind poll. About 54 percent of Republicans approve of the governor ‘s job and 37 percent disapprove, while 77 percent of Democrats and 61 percent of independents disapprove. Voters most often used words like “bully,” “arrogant” and “disappointing” to describe Christie to pollsters.

After he dropped out of the presidential race, reasonable expectations in the state were that Christie would turn his attention back home to fix the state’s transportation budget and pension crisis. Instead, Christie jumped right back into the presidential campaign — to get behind a polarizing figure, no less. And he didn’t just endorse Trump; he traveled to Florida to be with him on Super Tuesday.

It should be no surprise, then, that according to the Fairleigh Dickinson poll, Christie’s support back home has continued to fall. The 30 percent approval rating ties an all-time low.

Further potential humiliation for Christie came Wednesday, when Politico’s Matt Friedman surveyed 10 of the state’s 21 Republican chairs and found just one is going to personally endorse Trump alongside their governor.

Christie could well reason he doesn’t need New Jersey’s approval anymore. He’s term-limited and will leave office in 2017 (if he doesn’t join the Trump administration before then).

But you could also argue that he’s got his legacy to worry about — and that a tarnished legacy is damaging for the New Jersey Republicans he will leave behind. They’re the ones who will be left to deal with the fallout from his messy tenure as governor in a blue state, where the deck is already stacked against him.

“While they’ve been publicly loyal,” said Brigid Harrison, a political science and law professor with Montclair State University, “behind closed doors, they will tell you they cannot wait for the Christie era to be over.”

Counting the days until Christie is out of office is a far cry from when the New Jersey governor was the guy Republicans begged to run for president in 2012.

Christie ultimately said he wasn’t ready to. It’s safe to say when he decided he was ready to run, Christie didn’t expect things to end up like this. Bridgegate haunted him, the state suffered a series of credit downgrades, he dropped out after the second nominating contest, he came home to a state that appears largely fed up with him, and he quickly became ridiculed on the national stage for becoming the first national GOP figure to throw his lot in with the GOP front-runner.

In fact, since his first few years as governor, it seems just about everything that could go wrong for Christie back home has. There is perhaps no better symbolism of that than Christie standing awkwardly and almost painfully in Trump’s shadow on Super Tuesday:

Christie’s demeanor back home comes across as a politician who just doesn’t care about any of this. Being strong-willed is great when you’re riding high; when you’re struggling, it comes across as not caring.

He’s come across as indignant, defiant and perplexing — so much so that his awkward behavior this week risks being the picture, for now, of his political career.

Or, Christie could redeem himself with a Trump win in November, become his vice president or attorney general and play a major role in Making America Great Again.

Whatever happens, Christie’s reputation on the national stage is likely of little concern to the two-thirds or so of New Jersey residents who it seems have already written their governor off — likely after they got the feeling Christie has done the same for them.

(c) 2016, The Washington Post · Amber Phillips