Obama's Approval Rate Under 50%

By Michael Mcauliff DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

Quinnipiac is out with a new poll that shows President Obama's job approval is under 50% for the first time, at 48%.

Obama is still on the positive side, with just 42% thinking he is doing a poor job. But it is not good news for a President trying to push through a tough set of initiatives, with health care and revamping the Afghanistan war at the forefront.

"Although President Obama's job approval rating is below 50% for the first time nationally, it is not statistically different from his 50% approval rating in October. Nevertheless, in politics symbols matter and this is not a good symbol for the White House," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

He still has narrow margins of support, but they don't all come from the same people.

On health care, Democrats and more liberal voters back him, but they do not on the impending Afghanistan decision, while more conservative voters do, leaving him with a 48% to 41% split among Americans who think fighting the war is the right thing to do.

"Increasingly, the President finds himself with two different coalitions, one that backs him on domestic matters and a completely different one that backs him on Afghanistan. That could create a challenge to his considerable political skills," Brown.

The poll suggests Obama could be riding higher on his war efforts, but many of the people who support him there think he should be acting more quickly.

"One reason the President's approval for his handling of the Afghanistan situation may be falling is the criticism he is not deciding on troop levels quickly enough," Brown said.

Elsewhere in the survey, Obama gets a 47-46 split on handling the economy — a big drop from October's 52-43. And there are increasing gender and race gaps.