Poll: Obama job approval rising, race still tight - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

A new Associated Press-GfK poll finds that Americans are feeling markedly better about the country's future and about Barack Obama's job performance. That said, the president's re-election race against Republican Mitt Romney remains a neck-and-neck proposition.

Obama's approval rating is back above 50 percent for the first time since May. The AP-GfK poll also shows that the share of Americans who think the country is moving in the right direction is at its highest level since just after the death of Osama bin Laden in May 2011.

The poll shows that Romney has lost his pre-convention edge on the top issue of the campaign - the economy.

Obama is supported by 47 percent of likely voters and Romney by 46 percent, promising an all-out fight to the finish.

Meantime, a super political action committee supporting President Barack Obama is running the first television advertisement using Republican Mitt Romney's words from a closed-door fundraiser.

The ad from Priorities USA Action shows clips of Romney telling wealthy donors that 47 percent of Americans "believe that they are victims." Romney goes on to say he'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility.

The ad closes with a narrator saying Romney will never convince middle-class voters he's on their side.

Mother Jones magazine published the Romney video clips Monday.

The ad is part of a $30 million project by Priorities that focuses on how it believes Romney's proposals would hurt the middle class. The ad will run in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.

It's familiar ground for the presidential candidates as they grapple over the proper role of government in a debate where clumsy, seemingly dismissive statements have made both men susceptible to caricature.

Obama ridiculed Romney's claim that nearly half of Americans believe they are entitled to a range of government support and that as a candidate he doesn't feel a need to worry about them. Obama said presidents "have to work for everyone, not just for some."

In July, Republicans seized on an incomplete sound bite of Obama saying, "If you've got a business - you didn't build that."

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