Tuesday, January 18th 2011, 11:28 AM

Dharapak/APPresident

Barack Obama's approval rating is the highest its been in more than a year, according to a new poll.

Bam is back.

The President has matched his highest approval rating in more than a year, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll.

Fifty-four percent of Americans approve of Obama's job performance. Support for him hasn't been this high since April 2010 after he signed the health care reform bill into law

The number is also a five point rise from December and an eight-point jump from his lowest rating in September -- just before the Democrats took a thrashing in the midterm elections.

A CNN poll echoed the same results this week, with 53% of Americans approving Obama's job performance.

Americans overwhelmingly favored how President Obama handled the Jan. 8 shootings in Tucson, with 78% approving and 13% disapproving, according to the ABC News poll.

An impressive 71% of Republicans said they, too, approved of his response to the rampage, which left six dead and 13 injured, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

In contrast, the poll found that just 30% of those polled approved ex-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's response to the shooting, while nearly half, 46%, disapproved.

Palin was blasted after the deadly massacre as critics drew a correlation between the shooting and a map she had posted in the spring showing crosshairs over opponents' districts, including Giffords'.

But it's not all roses for President Obama.

He still faces an uphill battle on major domestic issues, which will likely be spotlighted in the lead up to the 2012 presidential elections. Fifty-one percent disapprove his handling of the economy and 52% disapprove his health care policy.