Obama’s approval rating leaps into positive territory

President Obama’s approval rating spiked into positive territory on Wednesday, according to the latest Gallup three-day rolling average.

{mosads}Forty-eight percent said they approved of the job the president is doing, while 44 percent said they disapproved, Gallup found.

That’s a big one-day swing, indicating that the numbers could be a quirk. On Tuesday, the president’s approval rating was under water, with 45 percent saying they approved versus 48 percent saying they disapprove.

Still, the president’s approval rating has been trending upward since bottoming out last August when only 38 percent said they approved, versus 55 percent who disapproved.

Those numbers followed the contentious debt-ceiling debate and the U.S. debt downgrade, but the president’s rating had been rising steadily since then, likely buoyed by the brightening economy.

The president’s approval rating went positive on Jan. 1, after Republicans botched the politics on an extension of the payroll tax break just before Christmas.

This is the third dramatic overnight swing in the Gallup poll in 2012, although in the previous two instances the numbers went against the president. In both cases, the approval rating quickly stabilized near the break-even mark.

Obama is averaging 45 percent approval and 47 percent disapproval for 2012.

Gallup’s tracking poll has a three-point margin of error.