Poll: 54 percent approve of Obama's job

WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama, a year after his historic election, finds his approval rating slightly above 50 percent, a CNN poll indicated Tuesday.

Fifty-four percent of the people questioned said they approved of how Obama is handling his presidential duties, a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey said. Forty-five percent of respondents said they disapproved.

"Obama's approval rating of 54 percent is nearly identical to the 53 percent of the vote he won a year ago," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. "It's a different story when we turn to ideology. His approval rating among liberals is 7 points higher than the number of liberals who voted for him. But among conservatives, the number who like Obama today is down 10 points compared to his share of the vote among that group in 2008."

The results indicate only 45 percent said Obama has a clear plan for solving the country's problems.

Survey results indicate more than half have a positive view of Obama on three of the 14 issues quizzed. Obama received a 62 percent approval rating on the environment and 57 percent approve of his handling of the government response to the H1N1 virus. Fifty-one percent approve of how Obama is handling foreign policy overall even though he gets some of his lowest scores on Iraq and Afghanistan.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll contacted by phone 1,018 adults Oct.30-Nov. 1. The margin of error is 3 percentage points.