President Barack Obama's job approval rating has fallen to an all-time low, according to a poll released Wednesday.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey shows that only 42 percent of American approve of the president's job performance, which is down five points from a poll in the beginning of October, Politico confirms. Meanwhile, 51 percent of Americans disapprove of Obama's job performance.
Overall, 41 percent of respondents said they have a less favorable opinion of Obama since the government shutdown that lasted 16 days. That is markedly higher than the 21 percent who say they have a more favorable view of Obama since the shutdown.
Another pitfall that is causing his approval rating to drop is the glitchy HealthCare.gov site that launched on Oct. 1, which allows individuals to participate in the Affordable Care Act's health care exchange. The faultiness of the site-- which includes the fundamental flaw of being unable to log on--has prompted some Americans to question the entire law's viability. Forty percent say they are less confident in the law based on what's been reported about the site's problems, and 50 percent say that the recent issues have had no influence on their confidence in the law's effectiveness.
Forty-seven percent think that the law was not a good idea, compared to 43 percent who believed it was a bad idea in the beginning of the month.
Congress also took a hit in the poll. Sixty-three percent of voters said they want to replace their own representative in Congress, which is the highest percentage on record since the question was first posed to voters in 1992.
The GOP's approval is also at an all-time low; only 22 percent of individuals surveyed said they see the Republican Party positively, compared to 53 percent who said they see the party negatively.
Such poll results do not bode well for congressional Democrats and Republicans leading up to the 2014 elections, but it's worse for GOP members. The poll revealed that 45 percent of those surveyed said they would prefer a Democrat-controlled Congress following the 2014 election, compared to 41 percent who say they would prefer a Republican-controlled Congress. Fourteen percent said they are unsure as to who they prefer.
The poll surveyed 800 adults, and was conducted from Oct. 25 to Oct. 28, with a margin of error plus-or-minus 3.46 percentage points.