Obama Gets a Boost in New Poll

The polls continue to turn in President Barack Obama’s direction, with a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey becoming the latest to show more public support for the president. Fifty-three percent of Americans approve of the job he is doing, an 8 percent increase from December, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Conducted after the president’s well-received speech honoring victims of the Tucson, Ariz., shootings, the poll also shows declining negative views of Obama, with 41 percent disapproving of him, compared to 48 percent last month.

“Surges in presidential popularity are common after a galvanizing national tragedy,” the Journal noted. “But those bounces can be fleeting.”

For now, however, more voters (40 percent) perceive the president as a political moderate, and fewer (27 percent) see him as very liberal compared to one year ago. For the first time in several polling cycles, his standing with political independents and with white voters also moved into net-positive territory.

The economy still holds perils for the president if unemployment remains stubbornly high, and how he deals with the other party could also turn voters against him. But pollster Peter Hart said a majority of Americans (55 percent) think Obama will strike the right balance with Republicans in Congress.