Photo courtesy of Walter Burns

Last week’s Bridgegate scandal may have put New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s 2016 presidential hopes in a bottleneck, but a federal investigation into his use of hurricane Sandy relief funds looks like enough to derail his bid completely.

The Governor’s Stronger Than The Storm tourism campaign is under fire after several television ads that aired during a Governor election year and were  paid for with federal relief money featured Christie and his family. The campaign cost nearly $4.7 million, all paid for with taxpayer money.

The investigation comes just a week after documents incriminating members of Christie’s staff of intentionally closing lanes of the George Washington Bridge to punish Fort Lee,NJ mayor Mark Sokolich for not endorsing his re election campaign surfaced.

New Jersey democrats were already outraged with Christie for the Bridge incident, (including Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who was calling for the Governor’s impeachment before the investigation was announced).

While the primaries are still two years away, a Pew Research poll shows a 6% decrease in support for Christie among New Jersey residents, and it’s tough to see Christie recovering from this and running, let alone landing in Washington in 2016; right now he’s still struggling to hold his office in Trenton.