American voters like President Obama considerably more as someone to share a beer than they like what he is trying to do when he's at work, according to a Quinnipiac University poll taken Nov. 9-16.

While 74 percent of the respondents to the survey say they like Obama as a person, 47 percent say they like his policies, the Quinnipiac poll found.

"Most Americans like President Barack Obama and might like to have a beer with him," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "But millions of voters who sided with him last November because they thought he would bring change to Washington aren't crazy about the kind of change he is trying to bring."

American voters are still trending hawkish on the war in Afghanistan and a plurality would support President Obama sending in 40,000 more U.S. troops, but patience with the war there is not open-ended, according to a Quinnipiac University poll taken Nov. 9-16.

Forty-seven percent said the president should send in the additional troops that his commanders in Afghanistan have requested, but 55 percent said the American commitment should be for two years or less.

"Overall, the new numbers on Afghanistan show an almost across the board erosion of support for the war and worries about getting too deeply involved there militarily. But when the focus is on fighting terror, American resolve remains strong," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

Less than six months before the primary election, Ohio voters don't know much about the Democratic and Republican candidates who are running for a key open Senate seat, according to a Quinnipiac poll taken Nov. 5-9.

More than half of respondents said they didn't have enough information to render either a favorable or an unfavorable impression of Republicans Rob Portman and Tom Ganley and Democrats Lee Fisher and Jennifer Brunner, who are vying to succeed retiring GOP Sen. George V. Voinovich.

But the poll did show a shift toward the Republicans in that President Obama's disapproval rating in Ohio (50 percent) is now higher than his approval rating (45 percent). And Portman, a former House member from the Cincinnati area and the party-endorsed candidate for the Senate, now has slight leads over Fisher, the lieutenant governor, and Brunner, the Ohio secretary of state.

Connecticut Sen. Christopher J. Dodd is running behind or even with each of five of his possible Republican opponents, including political newcomers who have not held elective office, according to a Quinnipiac poll taken Nov. 3-8.

Dodd is in serious trouble with his constituents, 49 percent of whom rate him unfavorably, while 42 percent rate him favorably. His job approval rating also is under water, with 40 percent approving and 54 percent disapproving of the job he has done as a senator.

Dodd's job approval has lagged behind his disapproval for more than a year, and polls since last spring have shown more people rating him unfavorably than favorably.

Two months ago, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, enjoyed a 10-point advantage over his likely Republican challenger in 2010, John Kasich. But now, the two split the vote down the middle, according to a Quinnipiac University poll conducted Nov. 5-9.

Ohio voters see Kasich -- a former congressman (1983-2001) and onetime host of a talk show on the Fox News Channel -- as better able to rebuild the state's economy and handle the budget, the poll found.

The 1,123 Ohio voters who participated in the telephone survey are evenly divided on the governor's race, with Strickland and Kasich each garnering 40 percent of the vote. Strickland's approval rating barely outpaces his disapproval rating, 45 percent to 43 percent, marking his lowest job-performance approval numbers since he took office in 2007.

Independent Chris Daggett continues to poll in double digits in the New Jersey governor's race in a new Quinnipiac University poll conducted Oct. 27 to Nov. 1. And the poll found that a higher proportion of Daggett voters now rate incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine, D, as their second choice over Republican challenger Chris Christie.

Christie has a narrow lead in the Quinnipiac poll over Corzine 42 to 40 percent, within the 2.5 percent margin of error. Both men have essentially the same proportion of support from their party's likely voters, while Christie has the support of independents, 47 percent to 32 percent for Corzine.

Daggett received 12 percent of the vote, down a point from the 13 percent he polled in a survey the firm released Oct. 28. That largely echoes poll results released Thursday by Fairleigh Dickinson University.

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine has taken a statistically significant lead over Republican Chris Christie, according to a Quinnipiac University poll conducted Oct. 20 to 26.

The poll found that the Democratic governor was favored by 43 percent of likely voters, compared with 38 percent who favored his GOP challenger. The margin of error was 2.8 percent.

Christie, a former U.S. attorney, led Corzine all summer, but was in a virtual tie -- 41 to 40 percent -- in Quinnipiac's last poll released Oct. 14. Independent Chris Daggett's support among likely voters seems locked in the low teens --13 percent of respondents said they would vote for him, a drop of one percent from the poll two weeks ago.

Former Florida state House Speaker Marco Rubio is cutting into Gov. Charlie Crist's lead in the Republican Senate primary, according to a Quinnipiac University Polling Institute survey conducted Oct. 12-18.

Crist led Rubio by 29 points in mid-August, but in the latest survey, the popular governor was ahead of Rubio 50 percent to 35 percent.

"Gov. Charlie Crist's lead ... has come back down to earth. His margin is still formidable, but obviously Marco Rubio's focus on convincing Republican conservatives that he, not Crist, is their kind of guy is bearing fruit," said Quinnipiac University Polling Institute Assistant Director Peter Brown.

Forty-four percent of Republican voters surveyed said they have a favorable opinion of Rubio while just 3 percent have an unfavorable opinion and 52 percent said they haven't heard enough about him.

Independent candidate Chris Daggett's growing popularity among independents has cut into Republican Chris Christie's lead in the New Jersey governor's race, but a majority of Daggett voters may change their minds about backing him, according to Quinnipiac University poll conducted Oct. 7 through 12.

Christie, who has led in the polls against Daggett and Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine since the spring, has seen a drop in his support among likely independent voters, which is contributing to a narrowing gap with Corzine. The Quinnipiac poll found that between September and October, Christie's rate of support among independents fell from 45 percent to 41 percent, with Corzine holding steady at 32 percent and Daggett jumping from 16 percent to 20 percent.

All told, Christie now leads Corzine just 41 to 40 percent among likely voters, within the plus or minus 2.8 percent margin of error, with Daggett coming in at 14 percent. In the September Quinnipiac poll, Christie led Corzine 43 to 39 percent and Daggett earned 12 percent of the vote. That confirms other recent polls that show the race in a virtual tie.

Republican officials who oppose most of President Obama's policy agenda often refer to poll numbers that show doubt or outright opposition among many voters toward the administration's economic policies. So it might seem that Republicans who favor a major increase of the American military forces in Afghanistan are getting ahead of public opinion, in light of a new Quinnipiac University survey conducted Sept. 29-Oct. 5.

The survey found that fewer than two-fifths of respondents favor a troop increase.

A look below the top-line numbers shows, however, that GOP leaders are voicing a majority opinion within their own party's base on Afghanistan, as on other contentious issues.