Can Obama Lose? Will he be a one-term president?

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama's approval ratings have improved and touched 50 per cent amidst people's growing optimism over the state of economy, according to a latest opinion poll.

Showing steady improvement since early December, Obama's approval ratings have reached the 50 per cent mark thus gave him a much brighter chance of winning the presidential polls in November, according to the New York Times/CBS News poll.

This is his highest approval rating since May 2010 (excepting the brief bump he received after Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011), the New York Times said.

"For the first time since the election season began in earnest in the late summer, as many Democratic voters as Republicans said they were more enthusiastic than usual about voting in the 2012 presidential election," it said.

According to the NYT/CBS poll, though Obama led one-o-one against the four Republican presidential candidates, the president received poor marks on his handling of the federal budget deficit, with 59 per cent of poll respondents expressing disapproval.

Meanwhile, a new CNN poll caught Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum - the two leading Republican presidential candidate - in a dead heat nationally.

While Santorum got 34 per cent of the poll support, Romney received 32 per cent.

The poll also said that Santorum supporters are much more highly motivated than those backing Romney.

"The new numbers indicate a split in the Republican party that goes deeper than ideology, with signs of a gender gap and class warfare breaking out in the GOP ranks," CNN polling director Keating Holland said.

Can Obama Lose? Will he be a one-term president?

Well about half of the voters don't pay any taxes, they receive handouts from the government ... do the math.

Depending on your poll of choice, President Obama is either up by double digits in hypothetical matchups with Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney—or is in a dead heat with both. Regardless, the data suggests that Romney may no longer be able to lay claim to the title as the most electable Republican in the race.

One of the two new polls, from Politico and George Washington University, finds the president with a comfortable lead over his two most likely November challengers, besting Santorum 53 percent to 42 and Romney 53 percent to 43. That poll has a margin of error of 3.1 points, so Obama's lead appears to be significant.

But the second poll suggests the race is much closer and that Santorum may actually have inched ahead of Obama. The USA Today/Gallup survey found the former Pennsylvania senator with a 49-46 lead over Obama, and Romney knotted at 47-percent apiece with the president.

While Santorum's lead is within the poll's 4-point margin of error, it nonetheless would appear to give the former Pennsylvania senator bragging rights over Romney, who has long sought to paint himself as the only Republican hopeful capable of going head-to-head with the president in November's general election.

I think people in our country think too much of ourselves. Not everything in the entire world centers around our elections.