Obama Rebounds in New Poll, Possibly Thanks to Congress

By Jill Lawrence // December 19, 2011 | 5:35 p.m.

Mitt Romney isn't the only politician making a comeback these days.

A new ABC-Washington Post poll shows rising numbers for President Obama. The man presiding over a nearly imperceptible recovery from the Great Recession is now at 49 percent job approval.

That's substantially higher than Obama's career low of 42 percent in the same poll in October, and better than George W. Bush's 47 percent three months before he defeated John Kerry in 2004. It's also more than twice as high as the 20 percent approval rating the poll found for Republicans in Congress.