Los Angeles ? Barack Obama isn’t even halfway through his term as the nation’s 44th president, but the latest Gallup poll released Friday shows that registered voters are about evenly divided over whether he deserves another.

According to Gallup, 46 percent of those surveyed said Obama deserves a second term while 50 percent said he does not.

The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points, making the results too close to call.

Unsurprisingly, Democrats are solidly for Obama’s re-election and Republicans are equally partisan in opposing it. Many independents, who were an important bloc captured by Obama in 2008, said the president does not deserve re-election.

Gallup notes that this type of question “is not highly predictive this far out from a president’s re-election bid.” People have plenty of time to change their minds before the 2012 race begins in earnest.

However the findings do follow polls that measure job approval ratings. Obama has been running just under 50 percent on job approval. The results are also similar to what Gallup found recently when it asked voters whether they would be more likely to vote for Obama or the GOP in 2012.

Those results could spell trouble for Democrats in this midterm election year.

In a spate of campaign-style appearances, Obama has minimized the value of polls and has urged his supporters to stay focused.