Public approval of his handling of the economy and healthcare largely steady 
 
 PRINCETON, NJ -- After six messy weeks -- defined chiefly by the partial government shutdown and troubled rollout of the federal government's healthcare exchange website -- President Barack Obama's reputation with the American public has faltered in some ways, but not in others. Most notably, for the first time in his presidency, fewer than half of Americans, 47%, say Obama is a "strong and decisive leader," down six percentage points since September. 
 
 Similarly, the share of Americans who view Obama as "honest and trustworthy" has dipped five points. Exactly half of Americans still consider Obama honest and trustworthy, but this is down from 55% in September and 60% in mid-2012 as Obama was heading toward re-election. 
 
 Americans' confidence in their chief executive to manage the government has also waned five points since September, to 42%. However, this level is similar to 44% in June and 45% in June 2012. 
 
 On the positive side for Obama, more than half of Americans -- 54% -- continue to believe he appreciates the problems Americans face in their daily lives, down only two points since September. And while far fewer than half -- 38% -- say he has a clear plan for solving the country's problems, this is typical for Obama, as well as for most recent presidents. 
 
 These results are based on a Gallup poll conducted Nov. 7-10. 
 
 Key Issue Ratings Hold Steady 
 
 In contrast to Americans' ratings of Obama's personal characteristics, their ratings of the job he is doing in handling the economy, foreign affairs, and healthcare policy are each down compared with early September, but not significantly. 
 
 This may be the best Obama could hope for in light of recent events and the decline in Americans' perceptions of him as a strong and decisive leader. Still, the 37% approval for healthcare and 39% for the economy and foreign affairs are hardly ringing endorsements, the last of which comes at a time when the Obama administration is conducting high-profile negotiations with America's longtime adversary, Iran, in an attempt to prevent that nation from acquiring a nuclear weapon. 
 
 Notably, all of these issue approval ratings are worse than Obama's overall job approval rating, which was 43% in the same poll, and has averaged 41% during the last two weeks of Gallup Daily tracking. 
 
 Bottom Line 
 
 Gallup measures that track the way Americans see Obama personally, and as the nation's chief executive officer, help document how recent events have affected the president's image. 
 
 Despite the embarrassing failure of the government's healthcare exchange website, Obama's job approval ratings for his handling of key areas of the government, most notably the economy and healthcare policy, are largely unchanged. On character dimensions, Obama does not receive high ratings for his perceived managerial skill or policy ideas, but these figures have been anemic for some time now, and show little change since September. 
 
 Of more concern for the White House, Obama's once-positive image as a strong and decisive leader has suffered, in addition to his longtime reputation for being honest and trustworthy. Of these, the decline in Obama's honesty rating may be the most noteworthy because Gallup has previously found that this dimension is one of the most important drivers of his overall job approval. Thus, the recent controversy over whether the president honestly described Americans' ability to retain their own healthcare plans under the Affordable Care Act could have the most significant implications for his presidency. ||||| Polls 
 
 All Commentary & News Stories 
 
 - Who Are the Adults Who Act and Govern as Children? - Jack Hellner, American Thinker 
 
 - Barack Obama and the Perpetual Presidency - Victor Davis Hanson, Washington Times 
 
 - Obama Is Still Electoral Kryptonite in Swing States - Rachel Stoltzfoos, The Federalist 
 
 - Barack Obama Loses Again - Tiana Lowe, Washington Examiner 
 
 - Biggest Loser of the Midterms? Barack Obama - Monica Showalter, American Thinker 
 
 - Obama Makes Midterm Push to Protect Legacy - Niall Stanage, The Hill 
 
 - Donald Trump Is a Shameless Liar - Former President Barack Obama 
 
 - Obama on Offense: Republicans 'Can't Help Themselves' - Gideon Resnick, Daily Beast 
 
 - Obama Reminds Americans of His Miserable Legacy - Michelle Malkin, Townhall 
 
 - What Trump Knows That Obama Didn't - Fred Barnes, The Weekly Standard 
 
 - Dems to Obama: Where Are You? - Sam Stein, The Daily Beast 
 
 - Trump Reversed Every Failed Obama Economic Policy - Kayleigh McEnany, FOX News 
 
 - If Dems Lose Again, Obama's Legacy Is Gone Forever - Jonathan Alter, Daily Beast 
 
 - Trump & Obama Hit the Trail - for Better or Worse - Sally Persons, RealClearPolitics 
 
 - Obama Is a Self-Absorbed Partisan, Not a Senior Statesman - Karl Rove, FOX News 
 
 - Obama's Return Reminds Us How He Led to Trump - James Bovard, USA Today 
 
 - Obama Reminds Us Why Donald Trump Is President - David Harsanyi, The Federalist 
 
 - Obama's Return May Energize Republicans More Than Dems - Mark Davis, Townhall 
 
 - Obama Comes Out of Retirement With Same Tired Message - Alfredo Ortiz, RCP 
 
 - Obama's Back, Loosening Trump's Stranglehold on News - Charles Blow, NY Times 
 
 - Obama's Back On the Trail, and This Time It's Personal - Robin Abcarian, LA Times 
 
 - Obama Hits the Midterm Campaign Trail--and Trump - Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker 
 
 - Obama Will Hurt, Not Help, Democrats in Midterms - Julie Kelly, American Greatness 
 
 - Barack Obama Is Just What the Democrats Need - Julian Zelizer, CNN 
 
 - Trump a Racist for Policy Obama & Bush Followed Too? - Eddie Scarry, Examiner 
 
 - Some Dems Say 'No Thanks' to Obama's Help in Midterms - Bolton & Parnes, The Hill 
 
 - The World As It Wasn't - James Rosen, National Review 
 
 - Trump Isn't Wrecking Obama's Regulatory Legacy - Cass Sunstein, Bloomberg 
 
 - Obama Is the Gift That Keeps Giving to Republicans - Adriana Cohen, Boston Herald 
 
 - Did Obama, Brennan and Clinton Illegally Collude to Take Trump Down? - IBD 
 
 - If Trump Is an Agent of Putin, What Was Obama? - Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post 
 
 - On Russia, Look at Trump's Actions - and Obama's - Mikheil Saakashvili, The Federalist 
 
 - Obama Still Lecturing, Still Clueless - Richmond Times-Dispatch 
 
 - The Nelson Mandela Lecture - Barack Obama, The New Yorker 
 
 - Obama's Legacy Is Still Damaging the Democrats - F.H. Buckley, New York Post 
 
 - Obama to Dems: 'You Are Right to Be Concerned' - Edward-Isaac Dovere, Politico 
 
 - Obama Remains AWOL for Democrats - Brent Budowsky, The Hill 
 
 - Barack Obama, Where Are You? - Gabriel DeBenedetti, New York Magazine 
 
 - The Sad Legacy of the Obama Border Orphans - Charles Hurt, Washington Times 
 
 - Why Obama Is Worried About 'Truth Decay' - Rich & Kavanagh, CNN 
 
 - Obama Was the Reason Clinton Wasn't Charged - Rush Limbaugh, Rush Limbaugh Show 
 
 - Stick to Netflix, Barack - Charles Hurt, Washington Times 
 
 - Ben Rhodes and the World As It Was - Noemie Emery, Washington Examiner 
 
 - Inside the White House During the Syrian 'Red Line' Crisis - Ben Rhodes, The Atlantic 
 
 - Obama's Revealing Reaction to Trump's Victory - Matthew Continetti, Free Beacon 
 
 - Obama Was Right: He Came Too Early - Dana Milbank, Washington Post 
 
 - The Wipeout of Obama's Legacy - Fred Barnes, Weekly Standard 
 
 - The Fragile Legacy of Barack Obama - Elaine Kamarck, Brookings 
 
 - Trump Threatens to Repeat Obama Mistakes in Syria - Marc Thiessen, Washington Post 
 
 - Can Obama Rescue the Democrats? - James Wolcott, Vanity Fair 
 
 - A Domestic Budget to Make Barack Obama Proud - Russell Berman, The Atlantic 
 
 - Trump Scraps Obama Rule That Turned Schools Into 'War Zones' - Paul Sperry, NYP 
 
 - No Drama Obama vs. Trump 'Chaos' - Larry Elder, Investor's Business Daily 
 
 - Think the Obama Admin Wasn't Corrupt? Think Again - Investor's Business Daily 
 
 - Did Obama Tutor Hillary In Electoral Conspiracy 101? - Investor's Business Daily 
 
 - How Obama Got Schooled by a Broken System - Julian Zelizer, The Daily Beast 
 
 - The Post-American President Returns to Center Stage - Brandon Weichert, American Greatness 
 
 - The Missing Obama Millions - McElwee, Rhodes, Schaffner & Fraga, New York Times 
 
 - Obama's Legacy: He Sparked Hope--and Got Blindsided - Julian Zelizer, CNN 
 
 - Did Lax Obama-Era School-Discipline Policies Enable Shooter? - David French, NRO 
 
 - Don't Rehabilitate Obama on Russia - Haddad & Polyakova, The American Interest 
 
 - Behind Fla. Rampage: Obama's School-Leniency Policy - Paul Sperry, RCInvestigations 
 
 - Obama Delivers Speech in Soviet-style Vacuum - Joe Battenfeld, Boston Herald 
 
 - Another Way Obama's Spies Exploited the Anti-Trump Dossier - Paul Sperry, NY Post 
 
 - Obama Knew Foreign Entities Were Interfering, Did Nothing - Tammy Bruce, Washington Times 
 
 - The Unexpected Obama-Trump Convergence on Russia - David Graham, The Atlantic 
 
 - The Obamas' New Paintings Are a Milestone - Rachelle Hampton, Slate 
 
 - Black Panther Is for Film What Obama Was for Presidency - Issac Bailey, CNN 
 
 - GOP Floats New Theory: Blame Obama! - Heather Digby Parton, Salon 
 
 - Completely Missing the Point on Lisa Page's Obama Text - Andrew McCarthy, NRO 
 
 - Obamanomics Is Dead and Trump Killed It - Brandon Weichert, American Greatness 
 
 - New Page-Strzok FBI Texts: Obama Wants 'to Know Everything' - Jake Gibson, Fox News 
 
 - Trump Rides Economic Momentum From Obama - Jesse Jackson, Chicago Sun-Times 
 
 - The Final Hagiography of the Obama Team - Andrew Ferguson, The Weekly Standard 
 
 - Had Media Done Its Job, Obama Wouldn't Have Been Elected - Larry Elder, Townhall 
 
 - Had Media Done Its Job, Obama Wouldn't Have Been Elected - Larry Elder, Investor's Business Daily 
 
 - Dems Respond With Echoes of Obama - Matthew Sheffield, Salon 
 
 - Trump Hasn't Destroyed Obama's Legacy, But Proved Its Import - Jon Chait, NY Mag 
 
 - Democrats Just Got Rolled. They Can Blame Obama. - Marc Thiessen, Washington Post 
 
 - How Trump Will Reverse Obama's Failed Foreign Policy - Mike Gonzalez, Nat'l Interest 
 
 - Under the New Trump Standard, Why Wasn't Obama Impeached? - Larry Elder, IBD 
 
 - Obama Is in His Element on Letterman's New Netflix Series - Ian Crouch, New Yorker 
 
 - Goodbye, Boring Candidates -- Hello, Boring Hysteria - Heather Wilhelm, Nat'l Review 
 
 - Trump Is Making Obama Great Again - Astead W. Herndon, Boston Globe 
 
 - When Will Obama & Supporters Cry 'Uncle?' - Wayne Allyn Root, Las Vegas Review-Journal 
 
 - Trump Can Learn From Obama's Appalling Errors on Iran - Washington Examiner 
 
 - Liberal Humiliation: Trump vs. Obama on Iran - Roger Simon, PJ Media 
 
 - The Prince and the Community Organizer - George Neumayr, The American Spectator 
 
 - Did Obama Go Wobbly on Hezbollah? - Peter Brookes, Boston Herald 
 
 - The Jerusalem Conflict Is All Obama's Fault - Alan Dershowitz, Washington Examiner 
 
 - Obama's Alternative Facts on the Iran Nuclear Deal - Eli Lake, Bloomberg 
 
 - Now, This Is Presidential Obstruction - Jonathan Tobin, New York Post 
 
 - A Collusion Bombshell, But Not on Target - Wesley Pruden, Washington Times 
 
 - How Obama Destroyed Black Wealth - Matt Bruenig & Ryan Cooper, Jacobin 
 
 - The Strange, New-Age Obama Reunion - Edward-Isaac Dovere, Politico 
 
 - A Post-Obama Democratic Party in Search of Itself - Robert Draper, NY Times Magazine 
 
 - Gold Star Mom: I Felt Disrespected by Obama - Michael Goodwin, New York Post 
 
 - We Still Need the Hopey-Changey Stuff - Yascha Mounk, Slate 
 
 - Without Saying 'Trump,' Bush & Obama Deliver Implicit Rebukes - Peter Baker, NYT 
 
 - Obama Admin, Clinton Covered Up Their Deep, Corrupt Ties To Russia - IBD ||||| Current approval at 9%; 2013 average now 14% 
 
 PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans' approval of the way Congress is handling its job has dropped to 9%, the lowest in Gallup's 39-year history of asking the question. The previous low point was 10%, registered twice in 2012. 
 
 These results are from a Gallup poll conducted Nov. 7-10. 
 
 Congress approval fell to 11% in October, during the U.S. government shutdown. Although the shutdown is now history, Americans' views of Congress have not recovered, but instead have edged lower. By contrast, Americans' confidence in the economy has begun to improve in the last several weeks. The continuing depression in Americans' views of Congress has occurred even though the troubles with the rollout of President Barack Obama's signature Affordable Care Act are now dominating U.S. political news. 
 
 Public displeasure with Congress is equally rampant across political groups, with Republicans (9%), independents (8%), and Democrats (10%) giving the institution similarly low approval ratings. 
 
 Twenty percent of Democrats approved of Congress in September, but their approval plummeted to 5% in October during the shutdown. This month, Democrats' approval improved slightly, but is still well below levels measured earlier this year. 
 
 Yearly Congressional Approval on Track to Be Lowest Ever 
 
 Congressional approval for the first 11 months of 2013 is 14%, on track to be the lowest yearly average in Gallup history, one percentage point below last year's 15% average. 
 
 Americans have rarely been highly positive about Congress, which has an average approval rating of 33% since 1974. Congressional approval on an annual basis was highest in 2001 at 56%, reflecting the rally effect after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But since the 2008 financial crisis, approval has been particularly low, with the exception of the months after Obama's first inauguration in 2009. 
 
 Implications 
 
 The government shutdown in October clearly didn't help Congress' image, and it appears that the impact of that incident may linger, given the record-low approval this month. This no doubt reflects the rancorous partisanship and bickering that characterized the shutdown -- the top reasons given by those who disapprove of Congress. Having a divided Congress -- with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats controlling the Senate -- means there are complaints among partisans on both sides, reflected in similarly low congressional approval ratings among Republicans and Democrats.
– It is hard to get 91% of Americans to agree on anything, but this is nearing unanimous: Congress stinks. Gallup's latest poll pegs Congress' approval rating at 9%, the lowest mark in the 39-year history of Gallup. The number brings 2013's average to 14%, which would be an all-time annual low. It's worth noting that while the number is historically low for Gallup, it's right in line with the other numbers in Real Clear Politics' polling average, and far from the lowest any poll has recorded. An AP-GfK poll from the first week of the government shutdown came in with just a 5% approval rating. As we've noted in the past, this puts Congress somewhere south of torture and Paris Hilton. President Obama's numbers look delightful by comparison—Gallup gives him a 56% approval rating—but he did take some hits in the character departments. For the first time, less than half of Americans believe he's a "strong and decisive leader," with the number dipping from 53% in September to 47% now. He's also dropped five points in the "honest and trustworthy" category, to 55%.