BY Aliyah Shahid
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Bam is back.
The President has matched his highest approval rating in more than a year, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll.
Fifty-four percent of Americans approve of Obama's job performance. Support for him hasn't been this high since April 2010 after he signed the healthcare reform bill into law. [Check out photos of the Obamas behind the scenes.]
The number is also a five point rise from December and an eight-point jump from his lowest rating in September -- just before the Democrats took a thrashing in the midterm elections.
A CNN poll echoed the same results this week, with 53% of Americans approving Obama's job performance.
Americans overwhelmingly favored how President Obama handled the Jan. 8 shootings in Tucson, with 78% approving and 13% disapproving, according to the ABC News poll.
An impressive 71% of Republicans said they, too, approved of his response to the rampage, which left six dead and 13 injured, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. [Photo Gallery: Gabrielle Giffords Shooting in Arizona.]
In contrast, the poll found that just 30% of those polled approved ex-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's response to the shooting, while nearly half, 46%, disapproved.
Palin was blasted after the deadly massacre as critics drew a correlation between the shooting and a map she had posted in the spring showing crosshairs over opponents' districts, including Giffords's.
But it's not all roses for President Obama. [See a roundup of political cartoons on Obama.]
He still faces an uphill battle on major domestic issues, which will likely be spotlighted in the lead up to the 2012 presidential elections. Fifty-one percent disapprove his handling of the economy and 52% disapprove of his healthcare policy.
