With President-elect Barack Obama already facing challenges from aboard, nearly half of voters (47%) say he will do a good or excellent job handling national security issues.

While 30% say he will do an excellent job, 34% expect the Democrat to do a poor job on national security, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken Thursday night.

Obama has been president-elect for less than three days, but he already faces threats from Russia and the Middle East. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev warned Obama this week that his country would base warheads along the Polish border if the president-elect went ahead with plans to set up a missile shield in Eastern Europe.

Israel reached out to Obama last night to tell him his promise of opening up talks with Iran would be seen as a sign of weakness. It was also revealed this week that both Obama and John McCain’s campaigns suspected foreign hackers accessed workers’ computers in order to prepare for upcoming negotiations in their administrations.

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Now Vice President-elect Joseph Biden said during the campaign that he believed Obama’s administration would be tested with an international threat in the first six months of his presidency. The running mate’s comment didn’t help Obama’s stance among voters, who trusted McCain more on the issue in every poll conducted before the election.

Not surprisingly, Republicans are not convinced Obama will handle national security issues successfully, with just 15% who say he will do a good or excellent job. Sixty percent (60%) of Republicans say he will do a poor job. By contrast, 55% of Democrats say he will do an excellent job handling national security matters, and another 23% expect him to do a good job. Forty percent (40%) of unaffiliated voters think Obama will do a good or excellent job versus 36% who think he will perform poorly.

Forty-eight percent (48%) of women think Obama will do a good or excellent job handling national security, and 45% of men agree. One-third of men (33%) and 30% of women think he will do a poor job handling national security affairs.

The survey also found that 48% of voters think Obama will do a good or excellent job handling economic issues. Just 16% of Republicans agree, while 79% of Democrats and 41% of unaffiliated voters share the same opinion.

Prior to the election, voters were fairly evenly divided as to which candidate they trusted more on the economy.

Obama has a lot to tackle in terms of the struggling economy when he assumes office. The Rasmussen Employment Index for October showed the biggest single-month drop and the lowest level of confidence ever recorded in its five year history. Consumer confidence, measured by the Rasmussen Consumer Index, dropped five points since Election Day.

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