WASHINGTON ( CNN ) -- -- With six weeks before taking office , President-elect Barack Obama is having one heck of a honeymoon , a new national poll suggests . A new CNN poll gives Barack Obama a 79 percent approval rating in the way he 's handling the transition . Nearly eight in 10 Americans questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey out Tuesday morning are giving the president-elect the thumbs up when it comes to his handling of the transition . Seventy-nine percent approve of Obama 's performance so far during transition , with 18 percent disapproving . Obama 's approval rating is 14 points higher than the approval rating for President-elect George Bush in 2001 and 17 points higher than President-elect Clinton 's rating in 1992 , CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said . Obama 's current approval rating is also more than 50 points higher than President Bush 's current approval rating , which now stands at 28 percent -- - with 71 percent disapproving of the way Bush is handling his job as president . `` An Obama job approval rating of 79 percent -- that 's the sort of rating you see when the public rallies around a leader after a national disaster , '' said Bill Schneider , CNN 's senior political analyst . `` To many Americans , the Bush administration was a national disaster . '' iReport.com : Dear Mr. President ... The poll indicates that 79 percent of the public thinks Obama will do a good job as president -- up 4 percentage points from last month . Eighteen percent think Obama will do a poor job as president , down 3 points from November . And 78 percent of those questioned said they believe Obama will be a uniter -- 20 points higher than those who felt the same way about then President-elect Bush in 2000 . Twenty percent say Obama will be a divider , 16 points lower than those who said the same about Bush . `` Bush came in promising to be a uniter , not a divider . That 's a promise Bush failed to deliver -- as he himself acknowledged last week in an interview with ABC News when he said that one of his big disappointments is that the tone in Washington got worse rather than better , '' Schneider said . `` Nearly 80 percent describe Obama as a uniter . So far , so good . '' Seventy-six percent of those polled have a favorable opinion of Obama . `` And the president-elect is not the only one who is popular right now . Sixty-seven percent have a favorable view of Michelle Obama and 56 percent have a positive view of Vice President-elect Joe Biden , '' added Holland . The Democratic party continues to be much more popular than the GOP . Six in 10 have a favorable view of the Democratic Party , while a majority have an unfavorable opinion of the Republican party . The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted December 1-2 , with 1,096 adult Americans interviewed by telephone . The survey 's sampling error is 3 percentage points .
CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey finds only 18 percent disapprove . Obama 's numbers eclipse those of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in same period . CNN 's Schneider : Type of figure seen when nation rallies for leader after disaster . Comment: