NEW YORK: Despite a picture of gloom and doom being presented daily since President Barack Obama’s election, the Republicans haven’t been able to profit politically from the economic downturn, says a new Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll.

The survey found a country in a decidedly negative mood, nearly a year after the election of President Obama. For the first time during the Obama presidency, a majority of Americans see the country as being on the wrong track.

Fifty-eight per cent of those polled say the economic slide still has a way to go, up from 52 per cent in September and back to the level of pessimism expressed in July. Only 29 per cent said the economy had ‘pretty much hit bottom’, down from 35 per cent last month.

In fact, disapproval of the Republican Party actually has ticked upward, along with the public’s general pessimism. Asked which political party should control Congress after next year’s mid-term elections, Democrats now hold a clear edge over the GOP, 46pc to 38pc, a month after the Republicans were nearly as popular. In September, the Democratic edge was 43pc to 40pc.

‘There was a bounce-back surge for Republicans, and that’s stalled,’ said

Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster who conducted the poll with Democratic pollster Peter Hart.

‘The mood in America may be blue, but attitudes towards Washington are just jet black,’ Mr Hart said.

The survey of 1,009 Americans was conducted from Oct 22 to 25.

Overall, respondents sent Mr Obama mixed signals on his top policy initiatives.

His healthcare plan continues to face a plurality of opposition – 42pc say it is a bad idea, against 38pc who say it is good. But a key flash point in the healthcare debate is that it is showing steadily increasing support.

On Afghanistan, the public is signalling it can support a presidential decision to send more troops, but only so far. Some 47pc said they would either strongly or somewhat support sending more troops into the eight-year-old fight, with 43pc saying they somewhat or strongly opposed such a move. Last month, 51pc said they opposed sending more troops, compared with 44pc who approved of such a move.

But asked specifically about sending an additional 40,000 troops, which the US commander in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, has requested, 49pc said that would be unacceptable. Just 43pc called that acceptable. A majority of Americans are amenable to a much smaller 10,000-troop increase, but a majority of women don’t support even that.