Fox News Poll: Obama Job Approval at Low for the Year

Approval of President Barack Obama’s job performance currently stands at its lowest level for the year, as a majority of American voters say they dislike his policies.

It’s a mixed report card for the president: 46 percent of voters approve of job Obama’s doing, and 46 percent disapprove. That’s his lowest approval rating for the year.

To date, the lowest approval of his presidency was in December 2010 when 40 percent approved and 51 percent disapproved.

Earlier this month 48 percent approved and 43 percent disapproved (5-7 June 2011). In May, approval of the president jumped to 55 percent following the killing of Usama bin Laden.

Click here for the poll results.

Any boost the president received from significant voter approval of his decision to drawdown troops in Afghanistan was tempered by considerable gloominess about economic conditions. While most approve of Obama’s plan on Afghanistan, almost all rate the economy negatively.

Disapproval of the president among Republicans (87 percent) is higher than his approval of among Democrats (81 percent).

Among independents: 40 percent approve and 45 percent disapprove of the job Obama is doing.

When given more options to describe how they feel about the president, views are once again mixed. By a 67-30 percent margin, voters like Obama as a person. On the other hand, by 55-42 percent, voters dislike his policies.

About four voters in 10 say they like both Obama and his policies (41 percent). Compare that to 29 percent who dislike both the president and his policies.

Congressional Approval

Approval of the president is more than double that of Congress, as 20 percent of voters approve and 71 percent disapprove of the job lawmakers are doing.

Most independents (77 percent), Republicans (77 percent), Tea Partiers (77 percent) and Democrats (63 percent) disapprove of Congress.

Congress hit a record-low job rating in October 2008 when just 13 percent of voters approved.

The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 912 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from June 26 to June 28. For the total sample, it has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.