Voters are now more critical of how the Obama administration has handled the situation in Libya, including the murder of the U.S. ambassador there, and most think it will hurt President Obama’s chances for reelection. However, they are slightly more confident in the president than Mitt Romney to handle events in the Middle East.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 35% of Likely U.S. Voters now rate the way the administration has responded to the situation in Libya as good or excellent. That’s down nine points from 44% in mid-September just after the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Forty percent (40%) view the administration’s Libya response as poor, up from 34% a month ago. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Win an IPad: Take the Rasmussen Challenge.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters nationwide was conducted on October 13-14, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.