Poll: Speaker did bad job in 'cliff' talks

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WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama emerged from negotiations on the "fiscal cliff" better than House Speaker John Boehner, a Washington Post/ABC News poll has found.

Some 52 percent of Republican voters gave Boehner the thumbs-down for the way he conducted the negotiations. That's a 15 percent jump in negative feelings for the GOP leader from December while the talks were under way, the poll found.

The displeasure was even higher -- 61 percent -- among the most conservative Republican and independent voters.

Overall, voters were split about the deal that was reached. Among all registered voters polled, 44 percent said they approved of it, while 42 percent didn't. The rest had no opinion.

On the president's part, 53 percent said they approved of how Obama handled the negotiations while40 percent disapproved.

Still, the two leaders did improve their appeal to voters of the opposite party

One in four Republicans thought Obama had done a good job, up from a dismal 8 percent in December. Some 27 percent of Democrats approved of Boehner's handling of the issue, up from 14 percent a month ago, the poll said.

The poll's margin of error and the number of people surveyed were not reported.