Count this as a potential win for Mitt Romney's message about business owners: 59 percent of them disapprove of President Barack Obama's job performance, according to a Gallup poll released on Thursday.

Only 35 percent of business owners said Obama is handling the presidency in the right way, Gallup reported, making them one of the occupational groups with the most negative opinion of the president. The group was the only one in Gallup's survey whose opinion of Obama dropped significantly since the last survey, falling from 41 percent approval in the first quarter of 2012.

Romney is ramping up attacks on Obama this week based on his July 13 comments about small businesses, which have been taken out of context as an attack on business owners. The president said, "If you've got a business, you didn't build that," but the sentences preceding and following that line make it clear he was referring to the government infrastructure that helps businesses succeed, not the businesses themselves.

The Romney campaign has latched onto the "You didn't build that" comment anyway, including a clip of it in campaign videos and holding 24 events across the country to "allow small business owners the chance to respond."

Obama said the attacks were "a bogus issue" in an interview that aired July 20 on WCTV-TV in Tallahassee, and released an ad calling them "flat-out wrong."

In the Gallup poll, farming, fishing and forestry workers are the least impressed by Obama's job performance, with only 34 percent approving of it. Professional workers were the most impressed, with a slight majority, 52 percent, saying they approve.

Obama's overall approval ratings have increased a bit among workers since the first quarter of 2012. According to Gallup, 47 percent of all workers approve of his job performance, up from 45 percent in the first quarter.

The results are based on 25,464 interviews Gallup conducted with working adults from April to the end of June.

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