Tailspin: Obama’s numbers on economy reach new low in poll

He ended up with an overall bounce because of Bin Laden, of course — from 49/45 last month to 52/41 now, with sharp spikes in his ratings on foreign policy, being a strong commander-in-chief, etc. But he was as high as 53/41 overall as recently as January. The reason it’s a modest bounce is because, on pocketbook issues, people have started to give up Hope of any Change:

Only 37 percent approve of the president’s handling of the economy, while 58 percent disapprove.

Also, just 31 percent believe the economy will improve in the next 12 months, compared with 43 percent who think it will stay the same and another 25 percent who say it will get worse.

These economic numbers, GOP pollster McInturff says, underscore the “tremendous anchor the economy is to the president’s job standing.”…

The good: The U.S. economy added 268,000 private-sector jobs in April, the most since 2006. The bad: Average gasoline prices have reached nearly $4 per gallon, and the unemployment rate increased from 8.8 percent to 9.0 percent.

Note that the partisan sample in this poll, if you include leaners, is a ridiculous 44/31 in favor of Democrats, so his true economic numbers are actually several points worse than this. His previous rock-bottom rating was 39/56 last August, but as noted in the piece, gas prices and the unemployment uptick have left the country exasperated — or so I assume.

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