President Barack Obama is riding a surge of public support into next week's State of the Union address, with more Americans approving of his performance and more seeing him as a political moderate, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
The latest WSJ/NBC News poll shows a boost in President Obama's approval numbers and the perception among Americans that he is more moderate. Unemployment, however, remains a sticking point among those polled. WSJ's Jonathan Weisman reports from Washington.
But public concern is coalescing around the stubbornly high unemployment rate, now 9.4%, a potential pitfall for the president. If rising optimism about the economic recovery dwindles, the surge of support could fade, pollsters say.
In the survey, 53% said they approved of the job Mr. Obama is doing as president, up eight percentage points from December. Forty-one percent said they disapprove of the president's performance, down from 48% last month. The poll surveyed 1,000 adults from Jan. 13-17.
As President Barack Obama marks two years in office, a new national poll indicates that Americans are divided over whether his presidency has so far been a success or failure.
According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey, 45 percent say the first two years of the Obama administration have been a success, with 48 percent describing it as a failure. The poll's Thursday release comes on the second anniversary of the inauguration of Obama as president.
"The generation gap that surfaced in the 2008 election persists two years later," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Most people who are 50 or older say that Obama has been a failure in office; a plurality of younger Americans think his administration has been a success."
