Obama faring badly in the polls

President Barack Obama's job approval ratings plunged to a new low ahead of his major economic speech Thursday, with widespread discontent among Americans over his handling of the economy and jobs, according to a spate of polls released yesterday.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll of 1,000 U.S. adults showed Obama's overall job approval rating at a low of 44 percent, down 3 percentage points since July, while his handling of the economy stands at 37 percent.

A Democratic pollster who helped conduct the survey said the poor results, which contain a 3.1-point margin of error, suggest Obama is no longer favored to win re-election.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that six in 10 Americans rate the president's job on the economy and jobs negatively, while one in three say they are now worse off financially since Obama entered the White House. It has a 3.5-point margin of error.

A third poll of 1,000 likely voters by Washington-based Politico and George Washington University found that 72 percent of voters believe the country is either strongly or somewhat headed in the wrong direction, up 12 percent since May. That survey has a 3.1-point error margin.

The poll, conducted last week, offers grim news for the president after wrangling with Republicans that ended with Standard & Poor's unprecedented downgrade of the U.S. AAA credit rating. -- Reuters