Below The Beltway

As of today at least:

In what may be the ultimate job rating, 43 percent of voters say that they would vote to re-elect President Obama if the 2012 election were held today, down from 52 percent six months ago, from April 22-23, 2009.

Obama’s job approval rating comes in at 49 percent this week. That’s down just one percentage point from late September, but it marks a new low approval for the president — and the first time the Fox News poll has measured his approval below 50 percent.

Moreover, the number of Americans saying they would vote to re-elect President Obama has dropped. If the election were held today the poll finds more voters say they would back someone else in the 2012 election than would back the president.

Despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize last Friday, the latest Fox News poll finds the president’s ratings on foreign issues are lower than his overall job ratings. All in all, 49 percent of Americans say they approve of the job President Obama is doing and 45 percent disapprove. His average approval for the term so far is 58 percent.

On Afghanistan, 41 percent of Americans say they approve of the job Obama is doing and 43 percent disapprove. For his handling of Iran, 44 percent approve and 43 percent disapprove.
On the president’s handling of the economy, voters are almost equally split: 48 percent approve and 49 percent disapprove. On health care, some 42 percent approve of the president’s performance and half disapprove, 50 percent.

I’m not sure that this really means anything beyond being a reflection of the generally downward trend in Obama’s approval rating that we’ve seen over the past several months. For sure it really doesn’t tell us anything about 2012, mostly because the 2012 election is 1,117 days away. It’s way too early for stuff like this folks.