WASHINGTON: More than half of US voters who describe themselves as independents disapprove of President Barack Obama's job performance for the first time since he took office in January 2009, according to a poll released today.

The Marist Poll found that 57% of independent voters have a negative view of Obama's job performance, up from 44% in a Dec. 8 survey. Twenty-nine percent of independents approve, down from 41%, and 14% said they were unsure.

"The message of bipartisanship and appealing to independent voters doesn't seem to be reaching the groups he wants to be reaching," said Lee M. Miringoff, the director of Poughkeepsie, New York-based Marist College's Marist Institute of Public Opinion, in a telephone interview. "This was a group that has been eroding for some time."

Obama is urging Democrats and Republicans to work together to end the impasse over U.S. health-care reform. Yesterday he invited lawmakers from the House and Senate in both parties to a Feb. 25 meeting to discuss ways to get an overhaul of the health-care system through Congress.

According to exit polls in the 2008 presidential election, 52% of voters who identified themselves as independent said they voted for Obama. By comparison, 44% said they voted for Republican candidate John McCain, the exit polls conducted for news organizations by Edison Research showed.

All Voters

Forty-four% of all voters in the Marist survey approve of Obama's job performance, down from 46% in the Dec. 8 poll, while 47% disapprove, up from 44%. Eighty-one% of Democrats said they approve, while 80% of Republicans said they disapprove.

The survey also found that 47% of voters said Obama has fallen below their expectations as president, up from 42%, while 42% said he has met their expectations, down from 44%. Just 7% said Obama has exceeded their expectations, down from 9%.

Thirty-eight% said Obama is changing the country for the worse, up from 35% in December, while 37% said they think the president is making the U.S. better, down from 44%.

More than half of independents, 53%, said Obama hasn't met their expectations, up from 43% in the December survey, while 45% said the president is changing the country for the worse, an increase from 36%.

The independent voters are "reacting in part to a lack of a changed tone in Washington," Miringoff said. "They were the ones who were hoping that he would be changing the country for the better. They don't feel that way at the moment. They're a group that's been souring toward the promise of change and the lack of that."

The poll was based on telephone interviews with 910 registered U.S. voters conducted from Feb. 1 to 3 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5%age points.