A new TIME/CNN/ORC poll that will be released Wednesday afternoon finds that a majority of Americans support tighter gun laws.

Carolyn Kaster / AP President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, presents his proposals to reduce gun violence, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013, in the South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington.

As he prepares to pitch an expansive new package of gun restrictions to a bitterly divided Congress, Barack Obama has the majority of voters on his side. A new TIME/CNN/ORC poll that will be released Wednesday afternoon finds that 55% of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing as President, compared to 43% who disapprove.

That ratio mirrors the public appetite for tighter restrictions on guns, with 55% of respondents favoring stricter gun control laws and 44% opposed.

Obama’s approval rating, mired in the 40s for much of his first term, has improved in the wake of his re-election and an acrimonious fight over the fiscal cliff, jumping three percentage points from the 52% he registered in a December CNN/ORC poll. The new poll also shows that Vice President Joe Biden’s approval rating has spiked to 59%, up from 54% in December, amid high-profile turns negotiating the fiscal cliff deal and spearheading Obama’s firearms task force.

Full results of the new TIME/CNN/ORC poll, which surveyed 814 adult Americans on Jan. 14-15 and has a sampling error of 3.5 percentage points, will be available on Time.com and CNN.com at 4 p.m. EST.