Obama's Approval Rating Slips to Historic Low

A new Gallup poll shows that President Barack Obama's approval rating has fallen to 41 percent.

This figure is the average approval rating from Gallup Daily tracking polls from July 20 through Oct. 19--Congress agreed to raise the country's debt ceiling in early August, while Standard and Poor's downgraded the United States' credit rating a few days later. Persistent high unemployment rates and ongoing wrangling over the economy and Obama's new jobs bill further polarized an already angry electorate going into the 2012 election cycle.

The only president since Dwight D. Eisenhower to have had a lower job approval rating at this point in his presidency was Jimmy Carter. His job approval rating averaged only 31.4 percent between July 20 and Oct. 19, 1979.