Poll: Obama approval rating holds steady

PRINCETON, N.J., Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Nearly the same number of respondents approve of the job President Barack Obama is doing as disapprove, a Gallup poll released Thursday indicated.

Obama's latest job approval rating is 47 percent, down slightly from the 49 percent recorded last week, Gallup said. Forty-six percent of Americans asked said they disapprove of Obama's job performance.

Obama's approval rating has been stable since the Nov. 2 midterm elections in which the Democratic party lost its majority in the U.S. House and lost several seats in the Senate, the Princeton, N.J., polling agency said.

Obama ends his second year in office with a slightly lower approval rating than he had at the end of his first year, Gallup said. In 2009, his approval ratings between Christmas and New Year's ranged from 51 percent to 53 percent.

Results for are based on nationwide telephone interviews conducted with 1,531 adults Sunday through Tuesday. The margin of error is 4 percentage points.