Less than half of middle class Americans now believe that President Barack Obama is doing a good job, according to a new Gallup Poll.

Among those earning from $24,000 to $59,988 a year, just 46 percent say they approve of the job Obama is doing, down from 51 percent in May and 66 percent in the week of his inauguration.

Among Americans earning $60,000 to $89,988 a year, 44 percent approve of his job performance, down from 51 percent in May and 69 percent during inauguration week.

The only income bracket in which a majority still approves of Obama’s     job performance is those earning less than $24,000 a year — and only    52 percent of them approve.

Overall, 46 percent of Americans told Gallup they approve of Obama’s job performance during the week of June 7-13, tying for the worst week of his presidency.

Americans rank global warming dead last among eight environmental issues to be very worried about, a new Gallup Poll reveals.

The percentage of respondents who said they worry “a great deal” about global warming was just 28 percent, down 5 percentage points from last year.

The following are eight environmental issues and the percentage of people who said they are very worried are, according to the poll results released on March 16:

• Pollution of drinking water, 50 percent
• Pollution of rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, 46 percent
• Maintenance of the nation’s supply of fresh water for household needs, 45 percent
• Contamination of soil and water by toxic waste, 44 percent
• Air pollution, 38 percent
• The loss of tropical rain forests, 33 percent
• Extinction of plant and animal species, 31 percent
• Global warming, 28 percent

For all eight issues, Americans are less worried now than they were a year ago, with the percentage drops ranging from 4 points for “maintenance of the nation’s supply of fresh water” to 9 points for “pollution of drinking water” and “the loss of tropical rain forests.”

Worry about global warming peaked in 2007, at 41 percent, and stood at 40 percent in 2000.

“Americans are now less worried about a series of environmental problems than at any time in the past 20 years,” Gallup observed. “That could be due in part to Americans’ belief that environmental conditions in the U.S. are improving. It also may reflect greater public concern about economic issues, which is usually associated with a drop in environmental concern.”

Barack Obama’s presidential job approval rating is 47% in the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update, a new low for his administration to date. His approval rating has been below 50% for much of the time since mid-November, but briefly rose to 52% last week after he announced his new Afghanistan policy.

Any slight bump in support Obama received coincident with his new Afghanistan policy proved to be very short-lived, as his approval rating returned to below the majority level by the weekend, and slipped further to 47% in Dec. 4-6 polling.

Afghanistan is just one of many high-profile issues with which the president is dealing. Immediate public reaction to his new Afghanistan policy showed 51% in favor and 40% opposed, according to a Dec. 2 USA Today/Gallup poll.

Obama spent part of Sunday on Capitol Hill talking to lawmakers as they continue working on healthcare reform legislation. In the most recent Gallup update, more Americans said they would advise their members to vote against healthcare legislation than said they would advise them to vote for it.

Additionally, in recent days Obama has been ramping up his focus on finding ways to create jobs for out-of-work Americans, and is planning a major speech on Tuesday outlining his ideas for spurring job creation. In late November, Gallup found slight majorities of Americans disapproving of the way Obama was handling job creation and the economy more generally.

Obama travels to Oslo, Norway, this week to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. In October, Obama got a slight bump in his approval ratings after he was announced as the winner. Obama will also travel to Copenhagen, Denmark, to attend the global climate change conference.

In the new Dec. 4-6 Gallup Daily results, Obama’s approval rating is 14% among Republicans, 42% among independents, and 83% among Democrats. Compared to his ratings in early November, when he averaged 53% job approval overall, his ratings are down three points among Democrats, seven points among independents, and four points among Republicans.

Thus far in December, Obama has averaged 50% job approval. That is similar to the December averages for Ronald Reagan (49%) and Bill Clinton (53%), who also took office when the economy was struggling. All other recent presidents elected to their first terms had approval averages of 57% or above in their first December in office.

Obama faced significant challenges upon taking office, including arguably the worst economy since the Great Depression and two ongoing wars. Obama is actively trying to address these issues while also tackling some longer-term issues like healthcare and climate change. Over the course of the year, his approval ratings have fallen, perhaps due to lack of obvious progress on many of these fronts, but also perhaps because of the public’s apparent reluctance so far to embrace the healthcare reform effort.

Obama maintains the support of more than 8 in 10 Democrats, though his approval ratings among his fellow partisans have declined over the course of the year. He has seen his approval ratings among independents and Republicans slide by at least 20 points since the beginning of his term, and now stands at a personal low of 47% approval among all Americans.

Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,529 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Dec. 4-6, 2009, as part of Gallup Daily tracking. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones and cellular phones.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Source: Gallup

The latest Gallup Daily tracking results show 49% of Americans approving of the job Barack Obama is doing as president, putting him below the majority approval level for the first time in his presidency.

Although the current decline below 50% has symbolic significance, most of the recent decline in support for Obama occurred in July and August. He began July at 60% approval. The ongoing, contentious debate over national healthcare reform has likely served as a drag on his public support, as have continuing economic problems. Americans are also concerned about the Obama administration’s reliance on government spending to solve the nation’s problems and the growing federal budget deficit. Since September, Obama’s approval rating had been holding in the low 50s and, although it has reached 50% numerous times, it had never dropped below 50% until now.

Of the post-World War II presidents, Obama now is the fourth fastest to drop below the majority approval level, doing so in his 10th month on the job. Gerald Ford dropped below 50% approval during his third month in office, and Bill Clinton did so in his fourth month. Ronald Reagan, like Obama, also dropped below 50% in his 10th month in office, though Reagan’s drop occurred a few days sooner in that month (Nov. 13-16, 1981) than did Obama’s (Nov. 17-19, 2009).

But all presidents except John Kennedy dropped below the majority approval level at some point in their presidencies, and all recovered after the first time below this mark to go back above 50% approval.

Half recovered quickly — Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush were back above 50% approval the same month they dipped below that mark, and Lyndon Johnson returned to majority approval in his second month after his initial sub-50% rating. The remainder continued to sink further below 50% and remained there for many months, but eventually recovered, with Ford’s effort boosted by the Mayaguez incident.

George H.W. Bush took the longest time to recover, going more than a year before his approval rating was restored to the majority level. Unfortunately for him, the 1992 election at which voters denied him a second term in office occurred during this time, and his rating did not go back above 50% until just before he left office in January 1993.

Notably, most of the presidents who fell below 50% during their first term recovered in plenty of time to be re-elected. This list includes Truman, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and George W. Bush. Ford and Jimmy Carter recovered in the short term but could not sustain improvement long enough to convince voters they deserved a second term, and, as noted, the elder Bush recovered after he was voted out of office. Johnson may well have joined that list had he decided to seek a second term. And Eisenhower did not go below majority approval until after he had been re-elected.

Thus, Obama’s descent below 50% is an important symbolic milestone in his presidency, but history suggests the odds of his regaining majority approval are high, and he could do so relatively soon, particularly since the individual nightly numbers for him in recent days have been right around the 50% mark. History would suggest his current loss of majority approval bears little relation to his chances of being elected to a second term in 2012.

Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,533 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Nov. 17-19, 2009, as part of Gallup Daily tracking. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones and cellular phones.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Source: Gallup

Folks, here is a Veterans Day poll, commissioned by Gallup. And from the looks of it, the GOP has something to smile about these days.

Republicans have moved ahead of Democrats by 48% to 44% among registered voters in the latest update on Gallup’s generic congressional ballot for the 2010 House elections, after trailing by six points in July and two points last month.

The Nov. 5-8 update comes just after Republican victories in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections, which saw Republicans replace Democrats as governors of those states.

As was the case in last Tuesday’s gubernatorial elections, independents are helping the Republicans’ cause. In the latest poll, independent registered voters favor the Republican candidate by 52% to 30%. Both parties maintain similar loyalty from their bases, with 91% of Democratic registered voters preferring the Democratic candidate and 93% of Republican voters preferring the Republican.

Over the course of the year, independents’ preference for the Republican candidate in their districts has grown, from a 1-point advantage in July to the current 22-point gap.

The overall results would predict a likely strong Republican showing if the House elections were held today. Though the registered-voter results reported here speak to the preferences of all eligible voters, voter turnout is crucial in determining the final outcome of midterm elections. Gallup will not begin to model likely turnout until much closer to the 2010 elections, but given that Republicans usually have a turnout advantage, if normal turnout patterns prevail in the coming election, prospects for a good Democratic showing appear slim. Of course, the elections are still nearly 12 months away and conditions could shift back in the Democrats’ favor over this time.

Since Gallup regularly began using the generic ballot to measure registered voters’ preferences for the House of Representatives in 1950, it has been rare for Republicans to have an advantage over Democrats. This is likely because more Americans usually identify as Democrats than as Republicans, but Republicans can offset this typical Democratic advantage in preferences with greater turnout on Election Day. Most of the prior Republican registered-voter leads on the generic ballot in Gallup polling occurred in 1994 and 2002, two strong years for the GOP.

The bottom line? Roughly a year before the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans seem well-positioned to win back some of their congressional losses in 2006 and 2008. Independents are increasingly coming to prefer the Republican candidate for Congress, and now favor the GOP by 22 points. Political conditions could still shift between now and Election Day to create a more favorable environment for Democratic candidates, but a Republican lead on the generic ballot among registered voters has been a sign of a strong Republican showing at the polls in the coming election.

Results are based on telephone interviews with 894 registered voters, aged 18 and older, conducted Nov. 5-8, 2009. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

The more fiscal details of the healthcare bills emerge, the more appalling they seem.

The Senate Finance Committee bill includes a broad provision taxing all manner of medical devices. This tax includes such frivolous luxuries as pacemakers, stents, artificial heart valves, defibrillators, automated wheelchairs, mechanized artificial limbs, replacement hips and knees, surgical gurneys, laparoscopic equipment, and the like.

President Obama is planning to reduce the cost of medical care by taxing it!

The most recent Gallup Poll reflected that 49 percent of respondents said they believed that the Obamacare plan will increase their healthcare costs. Only about 20 percent said it would lower them. It is taxes like these that substantiate this kind of concern.

The origins of this new medical device tax are troubling as well.

The medical device industry had its day at the White House as did the insurance industry, the drug makers, the nurses, and the doctors.

In turn, each group heard the White House request that they come up with voluntary cuts in their healthcare costs and support Obama’s proposed changes in return for assurances that Congress would not impose deeper cuts (or, in the case of the doctors, that it would actually rescind cuts already scheduled under current statutes).

But, unlike all these other groups, the medical device industry refused the deal. This posture enraged the tyrants in the White House who vowed to punish the industry with cuts imposed by Congress.

The result was a decision by the revenue-hungry Senate Finance Committee to extract billions in funds from the industry.

The legislation does not work like a sales or excise tax. Rather it follows the model of the punitive tobacco settlement imposed on cigarette companies in the 90s.

It assesses an industry-wide payment which firms must make in proportion to their market share. It bars them from passing along the cost of the assessment by charging more for certain basic products, but allows them to raise the price of others to raise the funds for the fee.

So, the result will be that virtually every piece of advanced surgical equipment will be subject to a price increase to meet the levy from Washington.

No matter that these devices often make the difference between life and death and that, in effect, taxing them raises the cost of vital treatments.

The vengeful White House will have its pound of flesh from the medical device industry for daring to be independent and to refuse to knuckle down to Administration pressure.

This tax, imposed in a spirit of haughty arrogance, falls on totally inappropriate objects. Valves, prosthetic limbs, pacemakers, hearing aids, and such are essential therapies that make life longer, better, and less painful. To tax them makes no sense — except in the world of sharp elbows and interest-group politics that grips this take-no-prisoners and show-no-mercy White House.

In recent memory, we (us conservatives) have been by and large outnumbered by the moderates. But apparently, that has changed.

A very recent Gallup poll is showing that we outnumber moderates for the first time since 2004. Need further proof? Read further:

Gallup’s breakdown shows that 40 percent of Americans call their political views conservative, 36 percent moderate and 20 percent liberal. Last year, conservatives were tied with moderates at 37 percent. While Gallup first documented this trend in June, the finding has been sustained through the third quarter.

So what put conservatives into the lead? Independents, apparently. Now, 35 percent of them are self-proclaimed conservatives, up from 29 percent last year. Meanwhile, the portion of independents who call themselves moderate dipped to 43 percent from 46 percent.

Among Republicans, 72 percent now call themselves conservative, up from 71 percent last year. Among Democrats, 22 percent now call themselves conservative, up from 21 percent in 2008.

Gallup also discovered that Americans have turned more conservative on specific issues. For example, perceptions that there is too much government regulation of business rose to 45 percent this year from 38 percent last year.

Based on those numbers, things are looking better for the GOP according to Gallup; they further added:

“The question is whether increased conservatism, particularly among independents, will translate into heightened support for Republican candidates.”

“Right now, it appears it may. Although Gallup polling continues to show the Democratic Party leading the Republican Party in Americans’ party identification, that lead has been narrowing since the beginning of the year and now stands at six points, the smallest since 2005.”

Gallup further states that trend stems from the increasing number of independents who now lean Republican.

It gets better, folks.

A Real Clear Politics compilation of polls by ABC/The Washington Post, Rasmussen Reports, CBS and Gallup shows that on average Democrats have a lead of 45 percent to 39.5 percent over Republicans in next year’s congressional races.

That data comes on the heels of an August Gallup poll that shows self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals in America.

According to that survey, more than 160,000 respondents in Gallup polls conducted From January to June 2009 have described themselves as either “conservative” (31 percent) or “very conservative” (9 percent) – for a total of 40 percent.

At the same time, 16 percent identified themselves as “liberal” while 5 percent described themselves as “very liberal – for a total of 21 percent.

According to Gallup, liberals lag behind conservatives on a statewide level, and conservatives have big margins in all but three states. According to a Gallup analysis:

“Conservatives outnumber liberals by statistically significant margins in 47 of the 50 states, with the two groups statistically tied in Hawaii, Vermont, and Massachusetts. In fact, while all 50 states are, to some degree, more conservative than liberal (with the conservative advantage ranging from 1 to 34 points), Gallup’s 2009 party ID results indicate that Democrats have significant party ID advantages in 30 states and Republicans in only 4,” said the analysis. “Despite the Democratic Party’s political strength – seen in its majority representation in Congress and in state houses across the country – more Americans consider themselves conservative than liberal.”

You’ve got to love those numbers, people. Thnaks to the POTUS (that’s Barack Obama to the acronym-challenged), the numbers have slowly but surely been leaning to the conservative side. And it should only get better as the health care issue is making this all possible.