Poll Tracker

Obama's approval-to-disapproval ratio is 53 percent to 42 percent with 5 percent undecided and, looking at those who "strongly" approve or disapprove, Obama comes out slightly ahead 40 percent to 37 percent. When asked how voters felt about Obama as a person, they voiced their approval by 72 percent to 21 percent with 7 percent undecided. Obama's favorable-to-unfavorable ratio is 61 percent to 36 percent.

Rating congressional Republicans and Democrats on a range of issues, voters trusted Democrats more than Republicans on overhauling health care (51 percent to 30 percent), on promoting energy independence (49 percent to 33 percent), defending middle class values (48 percent to 35 percent), "sharing your values" (42 percent to 40 percent) and honesty (38 percent to 27 percent). Republicans topped Democrats on controlling wasteful spending (41 percent to 33 percent), holding down taxes (53 percent to 29 percent) and promoting a strong national defense (53 percent to 33 percent).

When Republicans are matched against Obama, he comes out ahead on health care (53 percent to 32 percent), defending middle class values (54 percent to 36 percent), honesty (55 percent to 25 percent), promoting energy independence (56 percent to 30 percent) and sharing voters' values (47 percent to 43 percent).

Obama does far better than congressional Democrats on controlling wasteful spending, with the congressional Republicans edging him on the issue by only 42 percent to 40 percent. However, they trump Obama on national defense (51 percent to 40 percent) and holding down taxes (48 percent to 36 percent).

The poll said that 53 percent believe congressional Republicans are blocking change and still supporting former President Bush's policies while 41 percent disagreed.

Fifty-seven percent said Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress should get a year to see if the programs they have put in place really make a difference while 33 percent believe enough time has passed to render judgment.

Those surveyed disapprove of the job Congress is doing by 57 percent to 34 percent with 9 percent undecided and the biggest group of voters expressing an opinion one way or another are those who "strongly" disapprove at 48 percent.

Despite the fact that most polls, including this one, have consistently shown Republicans with high percentages of Americans viewing them unfavorably, likely voters in the 2010 congressional elections lean towards the Democrats by only 43 percent to 40 percent with 17 percent undecided.

Of course, that's a generic question which usually produces a far different outcome when it comes to how voters will actually cast their ballots when given the choice of actual candidates. CQ Politics' race ratings for the House that were released this week (see also our race ratings map found that, at best, 100 congressional districts out of 435 offered any chance of a seat changing party hands and only about half that are really likely to be highly competitive.

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