President Barack Obama's approval rating has dropped six points since he was reelected, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday.
Forty-seven percent of Americans approved of Obama's job performance, while 48 percent disapproved -- the first time his ratings have been underwater in an NBC/WSJ poll since last August.
The numbers echo the results of most national surveys in showing Obama's post-election approval boost gradually disappearing. HuffPost Pollster's average, which combines all publicly available polling, still gives the president a narrowly positive rating.
While bruising budget battles with Congress may have played some part, the trend is not unusual -- George W. Bush and Bill Clinton both experienced similar, though less steep, dips in approval after they were reelected.
Optimism about the state of the nation is also down, according to the NBC/WSJ poll, with just 31 percent saying the country is headed in the right direction -- down 10 points since December.
Half of Americans said they disapproved of the president's handling of the economy, a slight improvement on his numbers from February.
The NBC/WSJ poll surveyed 1,000 adults between April 5 and April 8.
This article was updated to clarify the nature of the included chart.
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