One week after his historic election, America's first black president-elect Barack Obama is riding on a tide of public confidence that he will improve the economy, government and race relations, a new poll showed on Wednesday.

"American voters believe president-elect Barack Obama when he says, 'Yes we can'" — his campaign slogan, Quinnipiac University said of its poll on voter attitudes after the 4 November White House election.

Voters have a favorable opinion of Democratic Senator Obama by a 67-19 percent margin, Quinnipiac said, greater than his election victory over rival Republican Senator John McCain of 52.6 percent to 46.1 percent.

Just over two months before Obama assumes the presidency on 20 January, on a key policy issue facing him, whether to personally engage in negotiations with arch-foe Iran over its nuclear program, the poll showed voters supportive, 62 percent supporting talks and 28 percent opposed.

The outgoing administration of President George W. Bush has mostly refused to engage in direct diplomacy with Tehran, branding it a supporter of terror groups and a security threat.

However, on another contentious issue, whether to close the Guantanamo war-on-terror prison, voters were at odds with Obama's position, opposing the closure by a 29 percent to 44 percent margin, with 27 percent saying they did not know or had no answer.

And only 38 percent supported Obama beginning an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq — another of his campaign pledges — while 56 percent said the US either needed to stay until the situation there is stable, or that it should just not have fixed pullout dates.

"It's not all smooth sailing for the president-elect," said Quinnipiac's Polling Institute director Maurice Carroll.

AFP