Obama Approval Remains Steady: Poll

After a week dominated by stories on Benghazi, the IRS targeting conservatives and the DOJ subpoenaing AP phone records, President Barack Obama's job rating remains largely unaffected, polling shows.

In a Washington Post/ABC poll released Tuesday, the president has a 51 percent approval rating, with 44 percent disapproving -- largely unchanged from the last two months.

Ratings for Obama's handling of the economy, meanwhile, are evenly split between positive and negative, several points higher than in the past two Post/ABC surveys.

The numbers don't necessarily translate into giving the president the benefit of the doubt on recent controversies: 56 percent say that the IRS' focus on conservative groups was a deliberate attempt at harassment, 55 percent say the Obama administration is attempting a cover up of the attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

But interest in those subjects is limited, with more Americans closely following economic reports than stories about either controversy. And those concerns appear to have had little effect so far on the trajectory of Obama's ratings, which peaked in January and have since returned slowly to pre-inauguration levels. Tracking polls taken last week also showed little change, while a CNN poll poll released Monday put Obama's approval at 53 percent.

As of Monday, HuffPost Pollster's estimate of Obama's job approval rating, based on the combination of all available public polls, was 47.6 percent.

The Post/ABC poll surveyed 1,001 adults by phone between May 16 and May 19.