Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a meeting with ministers at Miraflores Palace in Caracas in this handout photo provided by Miraflores Palace November 25, 2014. REUTERS/Miraflores Palace/Handout

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s approval rating dropped to 24.5 percent in November, according to a poll by respected local firm Datanalisis, down 5.7 points from September as economic problems put more pressure on the socialist leader.

Venezuela is struggling with a combination of recession, inflation that topped 63 percent earlier this year, and shortages of consumer goods from milk to detergent. The steep slide in oil prices will hurt government revenues.

The Datanalisis poll obtained by Reuters shows that 85.7 percent of those surveyed believe the country is heading in the wrong direction.

Maduro, who narrowly won the presidency last year in the election triggered by the death of Hugo Chavez, has seen his popularity drop by 26 percentage points since he took office. It is now at an all-time low.

Support for state governor Henrique Capriles, who lost the presidential election to Maduro in 2013, rose 3.7 percentage points to 45.8 percent, the highest of any of the country’s opposition leaders.

Though low presidential approval ratings are not uncommon in Latin America, support for the immensely popular Chavez rarely dropped below 50 percent and often exceeded than that.

Maduro weathered three months of opposition demonstrations earlier this year that left more than 40 people dead. Protesters, government supporters and security forces were among the victims.

Datanalisis did not respond to requests for comment on the survey. The company’s policy is that it only provides the results of its surveys to subscribers.

The survey is based on interviews in 1,293 homes between Nov 4 and Nov 20 and has a margin of error of 2.66 percentage points.