In this latest interactive survey of 4,742 likely voters conducted from Sept. 10-14, 49.4% approve of Obama's performance, and 49.5% disapprove. Obama made gains among both his Democratic base supporters and Independents, the two groups which were clearly the target of his address to the nation and Congress on healthcare legislation.

The prior Zogby Interactive survey on Obama's job performance conducted from August 28-31 found 42% approval and 48% disapproval. In that poll, likely voters were given two choices, approval or disapproval. In the September poll, the choices were strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove and strongly disapprove. The approval and disapproval responses were combined, and those are used here to compare with the previous poll.

After some clear slippage in August, Obama appears to be regaining support among groups that were key to his election. The following table shows President Obama's job approval percentages for all likely voters and the gains he's made among certain sub-groups from our Aug. 28-31 poll. The table also shows the percentage point increase for each.

Even with a stronger showing among Independents, a majority, 54%, disapprove of Obama's job performance. His approval was unchanged with both Republicans (9%) and the Private generation (42%), which consists of likely voters 64 and older. Obama did get a boost among Born-Again Christians, going from 22% approval at the end of August to 32% now.

The most recent poll found the number of likely voters who are proud to have Obama as President exactly the same as the previous poll at 52%, with 36% saying they are ashamed.

The margin of error for this poll is +/- 1.5 percentage points. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups.

Pollster John Zogby: "President Obama's speech on healthcare reform appears to have eased the concerns of some of his most loyal supporters, who may have been questioning Obama's commitment to his campaign pledges. He also increased support among Independents. However, he hasn't won over Independents or older voters, and those are the people who are giving some Democrats in Congress cold feet about voting for a major healthcare reform bill.  That's why Obama is and must continue to campaign for his healthcare plan with the same focus he used to be elected."

For a complete methodological statement on this survey, please visit: http://www.zogby.com/methodology/readmeth.cfm?ID=1415.

(Editors' Note: Zogby International will continue to use the four-point approval scale used in the September survey. In future polls, we will also measure approval for elected officials on an excellent, good, fair and poor scale, which had been our longstanding standard.  Using that question and the approve-disapprove scale will provide  a deeper and more detailed examination of public opinion, and  make  our surveys better conform to how other polling organizations measure job approval.)