Poll: Good economic news brightens Obama’s re-election prospects

President Barack Obama's job approval rating has hit the 50-percent mark--an important reelection barometer--and he would beat any of the major Republican contenders for the White House if the vote were held today, according to a new CBS/New York Times public opinion poll that illustrates the political benefits of a steady stream of positive economic news.

In hypothetical match-ups, Obama bests Rick Santorum 49 percent to 41 percent, Mitt Romney 48 percent to 42 percent, Ron Paul 50 percent to 39 percent, and former House speaker Newt Gingrich 54 percent to 36 percent, according to the survey, which was conducted from Feb. 8 to Feb. 13. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Public opinion polls are just a snapshot of the country's mood, and Nov. 6 is a long way off. A recent report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office sees unemployment staying above 8 percent, and potentially creeping up to around 9 percent by Election Day.

"In January, it's not clear that it's good to be winning," Christopher Wlezien, a professor of political science at Temple University who has studied the predictive power of polls, told Yahoo News. "By mid-March, though," a poll "has a lot of information--not everything you need, so don't mail in the results just yet."

But "it's not bad news for Obama, that's for sure. It's good news," Wlezien said.

Wlezien and Robert Erickson, a political scientist at Columbia University, have co-authored a forthcoming book that tracks the way public opinion surveys help to forecast the final results.

"What do these polls mean? They definitely don't mean that Obama is going to win for certain," Wlezien told Yahoo News. "But they mean something. Two-thirds of the story has yet to unfold. The third that we do have suggests that he's got an advantage."

There are other potential problems for Obama's re-election prospects. The tense standoff over Iran's nuclear program and the political crisis over European debt could send shockwaves through the fragile American economy.

The poll highlights how brittle Obama's standing may be: 59 percent of respondents say the country is on the wrong track, while only 35 percent say it is on the right course. Just 44 percent say they approve of the president's economic stewardship, while 50 percent disapprove. His record on jobs record received a similar grade, with 41 percent approving and 52 percent disapproving.

Forty-four percent of the respondents said either jobs or the economy was the top issue on their minds, far ahead of the 11 percent who did not respond or said they did not know, or the combined 9 percent who pointed to health care, Medicare or Medicaid.

Olivier Knox is the White House correspondent for Yahoo News.

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