Americans not happy with Obama's handling of ISIS

By Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Anthony Salvanto and Fred Backus

President Obama continues to receive negative ratings for his handling of the situation with ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria. Forty percent approve of the job the President is doing on ISIS, but more (51 percent) disapprove. In September, the split was 39 percent approval, 48 percent disapproval.

A month ahead of the midterm elections, Republicans hold a large advantage on the issue of terrorism -- as they did in September. Fifty-three percent of voters think the Republican Party will do a better job dealing with terrorism, while far fewer - 32 percent - pick the Democrats.

Meanwhile, concerns about a terrorist attack in the U.S. are at a level similar to last month, with 54 percent saying a terror attack on the homeland in the next few months is somewhat or very likely, but they are slightly higher compared to March of this year (44 percent saying somewhat or very likely), before ISIS emerged as a threat.

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This poll was conducted by telephone October 3-6, 2014 among 1,260 adults nationwide. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups may be higher.

Data collection was conducted on behalf of CBS News and The New York Times by SSRS of Media, Pennsylvania. Phone numbers were dialed from samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.