Poll: Obama approval hits low Andy Barr July 21, 2010 10:54 AM EDT

President Barack Obama’s approval rating has dropped to its lowest point yet in a new Quinnipiac University poll out Wednesday.

Only 44 percent of the 2,181 registered voters surveyed said they approve of the way Obama is handling his job. Forty-eight percent disapprove of the president’s performance.

The president’s numbers are upside-down on many of the key issues on voters’ minds.

On the economy, which consistently rates as voters’ top concern, 56 percent of those surveyed disapprove of Obama’s performance, compared with 39 percent who approve.

Fifty-one percent disapprove of his handling of the Gulf Coast oil spill, and 58 percent said the same of the president’s job on immigration.

Support for the war in Afghanistan too has hit a new low, with 48 percent saying it is the “right thing to do.” In April, 56 percent thought the war was the “right thing to do.”

All of the bad polling data for the president is reflected in the fact that a plurality say they would vote for an unnamed Republican challenger over the president in 2012.

Thirty-seven percent of those surveyed said they intend to vote for a Republican in the next presidential election, compared with 27 percent who said they plan to vote for Obama. The rest either didn’t know or said their decision would depend on who the Republican candidate was.

The poll was conducted July 13-19 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.