With gas prices on the rise, negative news out of Afghanistan, and uncertainty about Iran, President Obama's score in the msnbc.com Voter Confidence Index appears to have hit a plateau in March.
After five straight months of steady improvement, Obama's VCI score is now -24 for the first half of March, down three points from last month, when it closed February at -21.
After the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll out earlier this month, five new polls are out in just the last two days.
The polls are a bit more volatile than previous months with President Obama's approval rating ranging from +9 in the Pew poll out today to -6 in the CBS/New York Times poll out yesterday. Last month, Obama's approval range was from -4 in Quinnipiac to +7 in CBS/New York Times.
The direction of the country score is at -28; last month, it was -24. Both are significant improvements from after the debt-ceiling fight. In September, the average direction of the country score was -52; in October, it was -55 and November -51.
As the unemployment number has improved for five consecutive months -- and the Republican nominating fight has continued -- Obama's score has also gotten better.
At -24 overall, Obama is still 13 points off from where George W. Bush was (-11) when he won in a very close reelection fight in 2004, pointing to work President Obama still has to do -- and the likely close contest ahead.
Since 1976, aside from W. Bush, no president has won reelection with a negative VCI. Gerald Ford, who never won election but assumed the office after Richard Nixon resigned, lost in his bid for the presidency outright despite a +25 VCI.
For more on the VCI, how it's calculated, month-by-month scores for Obama, and historical data, check out VCI.msncbc.com.
