Public Less Sure What Obama Can Accomplish One Year Later

One year after his election, the percentage of Americans who believe President Obama can heal political divisions in the country has dropped from 54 percent to 28 percent, according to a Gallup poll conducted Oct. 16-19. There was also a significant decrease -- from 52 percent to 31 percent -- in the number of those who believe he can control federal spending.

Those results were the most dramatic across a range of issues where confidence in the Obama administration to accomplish its goals is lower than a year ago.

The findings are somewhat similar to a CNN/Opinion Research poll released earlier Tuesday that found Americans turning negative on a number of key issues, although the president's overall job approval rating remained about 50 percent.

Forty-six percent believe that the administration will be able to bring U.S. troops home from Afghanistan in a way not harmful to the U.S., down from 58 percent a year ago, while 56 percent are confident Obama will be able to do so with the troops in Iraq, down from 66 percent.

Forty-six percent believe the administration will succeed in improving health care, down from 64 percent, and 51 percent say it will be able to reduce unemployment, down from 67 percent.

The measures on which Obama fared best were increasing respect for the U.S. abroad, which 60 percent said the administration could accomplish (down from 76 percent), and keeping the U.S. safe from terrorism (57 percent, down from 62 percent). As far as the overall job approval rating Obama gets from the public, it stands at 53 percent, which Gallup says is ahead of Bill Clinton's rating one year after his election, and essentially tied with Reagan's in 1981 and Carter's in 1977. But George W. Bush, John F. Kennedy, George H.W. Bush, Richard Nixon, and Dwight Eisenhower had significantly higher ratings at their one year mark.