His approval rating is significantly higher than the number of Americans who think things are going well in the country. But Nate Silver sees danger for Obama:
[T]he “going well” number and presidential approval have historically come into much sharper alignment with one another in presidential election years. … Americans may think of their presidents in fundamentally different ways in election years, taking their president’s performance and their satisfaction with the direction of the country to be one in the same.
The Dish 