Obama’s job-approval rating is highest since summer, Post-ABC poll finds

After a difficult summer and a contentious fall, President Obama’s job-approval ratings are showing signs of improvement — a crucial indicator of his reelection chances as he seeks to overcome voters’ doubts about his economic stewardship.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that Americans are still broadly disapproving of Obama’s handling of the economy and jobs, the top issues, but that views of his overall performance have recovered among key groups, including independents, young adults and seniors.

At the same time, the public’s opinion of Republicans in Congress has continued to deteriorate, potentially putting the president in a position to benefit politically from his standoff with the GOP-led House over extending the payroll tax cut.
Obama’s job-approval rating is now at its highest since March, excluding a temporary bump after the killing of Osama bin Laden: Forty-nine percent approve, and 47 percent disapprove.
Perhaps more important to the battle over the payroll tax cut, Obama has regained an advantage over Republicans in Congress when it comes to “protecting the middle class.” In the new poll, 50 percent say they trust Obama on this issue, compared with 35 percent who choose the GOP — a major change from last month, when the two sides were more evenly matched on the question.
On taxes, Obama has improved since early October, while public trust of the GOP has slipped. Forty-six percent now side with Obama on the issue, and 41 percent with Republicans in Congress. Independents now side with the president on that front by a 17-point margin, 49 to 32 percent.
Obama continues to face major hurdles on the overarching issues of the economy and job creation, with independents divided about evenly between the president and Republicans in Congress.
Still, his rise suggests that the White House’s new tactics in recent months — to adopt a more populist tone and to challenge Republicans aggressively over taxes and income disparities — may be shifting the national political landscape back to Obama’s favor.
And it comes with an outburst of optimism among Democrats, 72 percent of whom now say Obama will win reelection, up from 58 percent who thought so in October. Americans overall believed by a wide margin in October that a Republican would beat Obama next year, but they are evenly split in the new poll.
The president is locked in a dead heat in a potential general-election contest against former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the new poll finds, with each winning support from 47 percent of registered voters. The two have been closely matched all year and are now about even among crucial independent voters.
The president leads a potential race against former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) by 51 to 43 percent among registered voters — in part because of an eight-point edge among independents.
Although the hypothetical general-election matchups are little changed from previous polls, overall, the results suggest that Obama may have found a way to navigate the politics of a sour economy — a development that seemed unlikely after the bitter debt-ceiling debate last summer. Then, he and his aides played an intimate role in negotiations, only to share public blame with Congress when things turned ugly.