Obama's Approval Crosses Over

President Obama's average approval rating has crossed over to the dark side, so to speak, according to Pollster.com:



President Obama is still within the Gallup/Rasmussen discrepancy zone: Gallup, which typically gives him friendlier approval numbers, has Obama well in the positive (49 percent approve/44 percent disapprove) [UPDATE: Gallup's newest numbers, released today, put Obama at 47 percent approve, 46 percent disapprove]; Rasmussen, which generally gives him lower numbers, accounts for most of the low end of the average

Zogby and Harris, which also yield lower numbers for Obama in general, also put him in negative territory. In the 39 polls taken since November 1, CNN is the only other to show Obama with lower approval than disapproval (48 percent approve/50 percent disapprove).

If you're wondering whether this is a referendum on his Afghanistan decision, CNN's poll of 965 registered voters, taken in the two days following Obama's speech at West Point, showed that the decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan was popular (62 percent favor it), as was the plan to begin withdrawing troops in July 2011 (66 percent favor it), but that respondents thought it was a bad idea for Obama to announce the withdrawal plan now (59 percent thought so) and that conditions in Afghanistan won't be good enough to start withdrawing troops then (61 percent thought conditions won't be good enough).

Three approval polls were taken after his speech at West Point last Tuesday: Gallup (49/44), Rasmussen (47/52), and CNN (48/50)...which means Obama's approval dipped in Gallup's and CNN's numbers, while he actually improved according to Rasmussen.