The public understands why gasoline prices are soaring, yet another poll reveals. Not surprisingly, they don’t blame the President, who has overseen rising domestic oil production:

Today’s Bloomberg poll found 66% of Americans blamed, “oil companies and Middle East nations” while 23% blamed the Obama administration’s energy policies.

We’ve reported that both Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal and Koch-fueled Cato Institute agree: “It’s Not Obama’s Fault That Crude Oil Prices Have Increased.”

And yesterday it was the National Journal survey that found 38% singling out “the manipulation of prices by large energy companies” and 28% citing “tension in the Middle East, particularly over Iran and nuclear weapons,” whereas only 14blamed “the policies of President Obama.”

The notion pushed by some pundits that the president is losing popularity because the public blames him for high gasoline prices makes little sense and appears to be based on an outlier poll. We have 2 major polls confirming that the public doesn’t blame him for high gas prices. And multiple new polls showing the president gaining popularity in the wake of the improving job numbers and the never-ending, back-biting Republican presidential campaign.

The Bloomberg poll puts Obama’s favorable-unfavorable rating at 52-45. Yesterday a Reuters poll put his approval-disapproval rating at 50-48. Today a Pew Poll puts it at 50-41.

Finally, Bloomberg notes:

The White House has an advantage over Republicans in its core economic message. Asked the better way to promote growth, 51 percent favor government investment in infrastructure, education and alternative energy, a theme often sounded by Obama. Forty-one percent prefer reductions in taxes and government spending, a rallying cry of Republicans.

Even in economically troubled times, people would rather have government investment in the future, including clean energy, than lower taxes.