President Barack Obama faces deep skepticism from swing voters who see the Republican party as more in tune with their concerns about government spending, according to a poll released on Tuesday.

These undecided voters, who could determine whether Obama wins re-election next year, believe Republicans are more serious about reducing budget deficits and more aligned with them ideologically, according to the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way.

The poll focused on voters who had backed Obama in the 2008 presidential election but voted for Republican candidates in the 2010 congressional elections. They make up about 20 percent of the electorate in the handful of hotly contested states that will likely dictate the outcome of the 2012 election.

While official Washington is caught in a debate over when President Obama can present his jobs program to a joint session of Congress, two polls released on Thursday show that the president continues to pay a steep political price for a weak economy.

About 65% of those surveyed in a CNN/ORC poll said they disapproved of the president's handling of the economy, while Obama's approval numbers in the latest Quinnipiac University poll fell to their lowest levels, driven by the economic questions.

Obama will address Congress and the nation next Thursday on jobs and the economy. He had first sought to speak on Wednesday, the night of a GOP presidential debate, but moved his speech back a day after Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the Republican-controlled House needed the extra time because of a scheduled evening vote. The dispute over scheduling, normally a routine step, is being seen by most as an example of the increasingly fractured political comity.

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.

President Obama's summer woes have dragged his approval rating to an all-time low, sinking below 40% for the first time in Gallup's daily tracking poll.

New data posted Sunday shows that 39% of Americans approve of Obama's job performance, while 54% disapprove. Both are the worst numbers of his presidency.

Obama's approval rating has hovered in the 40% range for much of 2011, peaking at 53% in the weeks following the death of Osama bin Laden.

But Americans' view of his job performance continued to tick downward as the debt-ceiling debate heated up. By the time he signed legislation averting a federal default, he was mired in the low-40% range.

In a new Gallup poll released Friday, a majority of registered voters say they would vote for a Democrat over a Republican if the 2012 congressional elections were held today.

The poll found 51 percent of voters leaning towards voting for a Democrat in next fall’s congressional election, with 44 percent saying they would vote Republican. Six percent were undecided, or would vote for a third party.

The Hill reports that although both major political parties were hurt by the debt ceiling debate, which ultimately resulted in a decision by Standard and Poor’s to downgrade the United States’ credit rating, the poll suggests Republicans will suffer more in the eyes of voters.

Incumbent members of Congress are also in trouble. Only 24 percent of voters say their representatives deserve to be reelected, a Gallup poll released earlier in the week found. That’s the lowest number Gallup has ever recorded for this question.

The sizeable lead Barack Obama held over a generic Republican opponent in polls conducted earlier this year has vanished as his support among independent voters has fallen off. Currently, 41% of registered voters say they would like to see Barack Obama reelected, while 40% say they would prefer to see a Republican candidate win in 2012. In May, Obama held an 11-point lead.

This shift is driven by a steep drop-off in support for Obama among independents. The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted July 20-24 among 1,501 adults and 1,205 registered voters finds that just 31% of independent voters want to see Obama reelected, down from 42% in May and 40% in March. Where Obama held a slim 7-point edge among independent registered voters two months ago, a generic Republican holds an 8-point edge today.

As leaders in Washington try to reach agreement on a budget deal, a record majority of American voters say they distrust the federal government.

Only 33 percent of voters say yes, they generally trust the government, a record low according to a Fox News poll released Wednesday. The previous low was last year’s 35 percent (June 2010). The level of trust has dropped a total of 21 percentage points from a post-9/11 high of 54 percent trust in June 2002.

A majority of voters -- 62 percent -- do not trust the government. That’s up from 60 percent last year, and up significantly from 36 percent in 2002.

A generic Republican candidate now holds a four-point lead over President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 election matchup. It's a fifth week in a row that the GOP candidate has been ahead and the widest gap between the candidates to date.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds a generic Republican candidate earns support from 46% of Likely U.S. Voters, while the president picks up 42% of the vote. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and nine percent (9%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Wary of a new surge in gas prices, the Obama administration has decided to release 30 million barrels of oil from the country's emergency reserve as part of a broader international response to lost oil supplies caused by turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa, particularly Libya.

The release from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve will amount to half of a 60 million barrel international infusion of oil planned for the world market over the next month.

"We are taking this action in response to the ongoing loss of crude oil due to supply disruptions in Libya and other countries and their impact on the global economic recovery," Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Thursday.

The administration said the uprising in Libya has resulted in a loss of about 1.5 million barrels of oil a day. The release comes as the United States approaches a period of high energy use in July and August.

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has moved up in the latest Gallup poll of the Republican presidential race.  A new survey, completed after decisions by Mitch Daniels, Mike Huckabee, and Donald Trump not to run for president, shows Palin in second place, close behind leader Mitt Romney.  But the number of voters who are undecided is larger than any single candidate's support.

The poll, which was limited to Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, has Romney in first place with 17 percent.  Palin is next, with 15 percent.  After that is Ron Paul, with 10 percent, Newt Gingrich with nine percent, Herman Cain with eight percent, Tim Pawlenty with six percent, Michele Bachmann with five percent, and Jon Huntsman, Rick Santorum, and Gary Johnson with two percent.  Twenty-two percent say they have no opinion.

A new survey released Friday by Rasmussen Reports shows that more than half of Americans, 60%, believe that the current federal government policies regarding immigration encourage the act of “border jumping” or crossing into the US illegally. This coincides with 64% of Americans saying that they believe that it is better to secure the US/Mexico border and prevent more illegal immigrants from crossing over than to work on establishing citizenship for the ones who have already entered the country.

Rasmussen reported that 60% of Americans questioned in a telephone survey between May 17 and May 18th considered the current policies in place regarding the response towards illegal entry into the United States ineffective to the point of actually strengthening the resolve of those non-Americans who make the dangerous trek from Central American nations into the US using smuggling systems, including miles of tunnels that criss-cross the border.

Obama slips back to 45/48. Gallup tracks daily the percentage of Americans who approve or disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as president. Results are based on telephone interviews with approximately 1,500 national adults; Margin of error is ±3 percentage points.

Wow! The AP poll has Obama’s approval rating hitting 60 percent! And 53 percent say he deserves to be reelected!

And on the economy, 52 percent approve of the way Obama’s handling it, and only 47 percent disapprove! He’s up 54–46 on approval of how he’s handling health care! On unemployment, 52 percent approval, 47 percent disapproval! 57 percent approval on handling Libya! Even on the deficit, he’s at 47 percent approval, 52 percent disapproval!

It is a poll of adults, which isn’t surprising; as I mentioned yesterday, you don’t have to be a registered or likely voter to have an opinion on the president.

But then you get to the party ID: 46 percent identify as Democrat or leaning Democrat, 29 percent identify as Republican or leaning Republican, 4 percent identify as purely independent leaning towards neither party, and 20 percent answered, “I don’t know.”

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday, the Democrats have a four-point margin over the Republicans in the battle for control of Congress. The poll indicates that 50 percent registered voters say if the election for Congress was held today, they would vote for the Democrat in their district, with 46 percent saying they would cast a ballot for the Republican in their district. The Democrats' four-point margin is within the poll's sampling error.

The GOP won 63 seats in last year's midterm elections, taking back control of the House for the first time in four years. CNN's last poll conducted before the midterms indicated the Republicans had a six-point advantage over the Democrats.

GOP victories in 2010 were due to some major historical shifts. More women voted for Republican candidates than Democratic candidates in 2010 for the first time since exit polling began in the early 1970s.

According to the Zogby polling group 58% of all State residents think Governor Eliot Spitzer's plan is a bad idea. In New York City the proposal is opposed by a thin margin, 52-48, 56-37 in the City's suburbs and 64-25 upstate.