A majority of Americans now oppose giving President Obama a second term, reflecting the country's continued weak economic performance, according to the latest IBD/TIPP survey released Monday.

By 51%-41%, respondents in October picked "someone new deserves a chance" over Obama "deserves to be re-elected." Among independents, it was 54%-36%. Back in September, the readings were 50%-44% and 53%-38%, respectively.

Americans are frustrated over the continued sluggish economy, says Raghavan Mayur, president of TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, which conducted the poll. As Vice President Joe Biden recently admitted, after nearly three years in power, the Obama administration owns the economy.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has decided against entering the race for president, most likely ending once and for all the GOP establishment’s hope for a new candidate in the 2012 race.

Christie has scheduled a 1 p.m. press conference in his state’s capital, where he’s expected to announce that he will not seek the presidency. Two sources said he has started informing people of his decision in advance of his Trenton press conference.

President Barack Obama is closely matched against each of four possible Republican opponents when registered voters are asked whom they would support if the 2012 presidential election were held today. Mitt Romney leads Obama by two percentage points, 48% to 46%, Rick Perry and Obama are tied at 47%, and Obama edges out Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann by two and four points, respectively.

Tim Pawlenty announced an end to his presidential candidacy Sunday after what he called a "disappointing" third place finish in the Ames, Iowa, straw poll.

The former Minnesota governor said he had hoped to get a jolt from the preference poll that is an early indicator of a candidate's potential strength in the primary season.

"I'm ending my campaign for president," Pawlenty told ABC's "This Week," noting that he wished the scenario had been different but voters were looking for something else.

As the chances for a big deal on debt and deficits evaporate in the heat of deadline negotiations, fiscal hawks are growing increasingly frustrated.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is releasing his “Back in Black” plan for massive debt reduction and four of his former compadres from the Gang of Six are rolling out their less-ambitious deficit plan.

House Republicans, meanwhile, are pushing through the conservative-backed proposal for deep cuts now, spending caps later and a balanced budget amendment farther down the road.

None of these big-ticket items seem to be going anywhere before a projected government shutdown begins sometime in the next few weeks, so why bring them up now?

Part of it is the hope for a miraculous ending to this months-long debate in which a very liberal president and very conservative members of Congress decide to ditch their dogmas in the name of bipartisan compromise. It’s never happened before, but hey, there’s a first time for everything, right?

Republican Mitt Romney plans to report raising $18.25 million during the second quarter for his presidential campaign.

The former Massachusetts governor said in a statement today that he had raised that sum between April 1 and June 30, and still had $12.6 million on hand.

While he has yet to release the report due to the Federal Election Commission by mid-month, Romney’s statement said he had received donations from all 50 state and Washington, DC.

“Voters are responding to Mitt Romney’s message that President Obama’s policies have failed and that we need new leadership in Washington,” said Romney for President National Finance Chairman Spencer Zwick. “Our fund-raising for the second quarter represents the strong support Mitt Romney has across the country.”

Obama himself is expected to report well over an informal $60 million goal set by his supporters.

ABC News' George Stephanopoulos said the media plans on investigating all 23 of Michele Bachmann's foster children, tries to get her to say she'd eliminate the minimum wage, tries to stir up trouble between her and Palin, and debates her about the founding fathers and slavery.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, stressing her Iowa roots and appealing directly to Tea Party voters, came out swinging Monday as she formally launched her campaign for president.

Buoyed by a strong showing in several recent polls, the Minnesota congresswoman cast her campaign as the voice for "constitutional conservatives" looking for a government that lives within its means while giving the private sector the room to grow. She launched a broadside against President Obama for racking up too much debt while stimulating too little job growth and vowed to make him a "one-term president."

"We cannot afford four more years of Barack Obama," she declared, later adding: "We can win in 2012 and we will win."

Obama will announce in a televised address at 8 p.m. EDT (midnight GMT) a plan to pull out 10,000 troops from Afghanistan by year's end, followed by about 23,000 more by the end of next summer, congressional aides told Reuters.

News that Obama will pull the entire 'surge' force he sent to Afghanistan in 2010 caps weeks of speculation about the future of U.S. involvement there and could increase friction between Obama and military advisors who have warned about the perils of a hasty drawdown.

Nearly 10 years after the September 11 attacks that triggered the war, U.S. and NATO forces have been unable to deal a decisive blow to the insurgent Taliban. The Afghan government remains weak and notoriously corrupt and billions of dollars in foreign aid efforts have yielded meager results.

Former Massachusetts Gov. and current GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney is refusing to sign a pledge penned by the pro-life group 'The Susan B. Anthony List.' The pledge calls for the nomination of judges "who are committed to restraint and applying the original meaning of the Constitution, not legislating from the bench."

It also demands the selection of pro-life appointees for cabinet positions and the advancement of "pro-life legislation to permanently end all taxpayer funding of abortion," as well as the defunding of Planned Parenthood.

"Mitt Romney pledged in the last campaign that he would be a pro-life president and of course he pledges it today," said Romney Campaign communications director Gail Gitcho. "However, this well-intentioned effort has some potentially unforeseen consequences and he does not feel he could in good conscience sign it."

At last night’s Republican debate, the seven candidates talked about unemployment, taxes, regulations, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s talk of a goal of 5% GDP growth, the individual mandate in the health care bill, the Independent Medicare Advisory Board, welfare reform, the Tea Party, currency policy, the National Labor Relations Board, Boeing, TARP, the auto bailout, Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal, former Gov. Mitt Romney’s health care program in Massachusetts, raising the debt ceiling, raising the retirement age for Social Security, the role of religion in public life, the 10th amendment, Libya, Afghanistan, and so on.

But President Obama’s 2012 campaign is sending out a DNC video suggesting the candidates spoke only about sharia law, an anti-gay-marriage amendment, repealing health care, Sarah Palin, and the space program.

“You should watch this,” says campaign manager Jim Messina in the email to supporters, “if you or anyone you know is wondering where the leading GOP

Michele Bachmann is a principled reformer who holds an unwavering commitment to the conservative values that helped her succeed as a small business owner, a U.S. tax attorney, a state and federal lawmaker, and a wife and mother. She is a Constitutional conservative who understands that our Founding Fathers established a federal government to preserve and protect the nation while fostering an environment where dreams could flourish. It is Michele's single greatest calling in public service to ensure that the liberties enshrined in our founding documents are handed down from this generation to the next.

Once provisions of the Affordable Care Act start to kick in during 2014, at least three of every 10 employers will probably stop offering health coverage, a survey released Monday shows.

While only 7% of employees will be forced to switch to subsidized-exchange programs, at least 30% of companies say they will “definitely or probably” stop offering employer-sponsored coverage, according to the study published in McKinsey Quarterly.

The survey of 1,300 employers says those who are keenly aware of the health-reform measure probably are more likely to consider an alternative to employer-sponsored plans, with 50% to 60% in this group expected to make a change. It also found that for some, it makes more sense to switch.

A legion of 1,600 newly-recruited Democratic campaign volunteers, armed with Tweet-producing smartphones and a contagious spirit of enthusiasm, are fanning out across 40 states today to begin laying the groundwork for the reelection of President Barack Obama.

The forces -- college students, recent graduates, teachers, and retirees -- will work unpaid through August, aides say, to grow and re-energize Obama's grassroots volunteer network that had remarkable success in 2008, and gather troves of voter data in the process.

Obama campaign managers hope the effort will give the president something of a head start over his yet-to-be-determined Republican rival, in what is expected to be a tough campaign.