Over all, the poll found, Americans are for the first time more critical than not of Mr. Bush's ability to handle both foreign and domestic problems, and a majority say the president does not share their priorities. Thirteen months before the 2004 election, a solid majority of Americans say the country is seriously on the wrong track, a classic danger sign for incumbents, and only about half of Americans approve of Mr. Bush's overall job performance. That is roughly the same as when Mr. Bush took office after the razor-close 2000 election.

But more than 6 in 10 Americans still say the president has strong qualities of leadership, more than 5 in 10 say he has more honesty and integrity than most people in public life and 6 in 10 credit him with making the country safer from terrorist attack.

By contrast, the Democratic presidential contenders remain largely unknown, and nearly half of Americans — and a like number of registered voters — say the Democrats have no clear plan of their own for the country.

A summer of continuing attacks on American soldiers in Iraq, the failure so far to find weapons of mass destruction there and Mr. Bush's recent request for $87 billion to pay for military operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken a toll on public support for his administration's Iraq policy and on views of his ability to handle such issues in general.

The poll found that just 45 percent of Americans now have confidence in Mr. Bush's ability to deal wisely with an international crisis, down sharply from 66 percent in April, and half now say they are uneasy about his approach. Nearly 9 in 10 Americans say the war in Iraq is still going on, and 6 in 10 say the United States should not spend as much on the effort as Mr. Bush has sought. Three-quarters of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, say the administration has yet to clearly explain how long American troops will have to stay in Iraq, or how much it will cost to rebuild the country.

"I am very uneasy because of the war," said Joyce Austin, 69, a retired nurse's aide in Readstown, Wis., who was reinterviewed after the poll was conducted. "I don't think the Bush administration had a good plan for ending the war, and for what was going to happen afterward. I don't think they realized how much it was going to cost." Mrs. Austin paused and added, "Maybe they knew and just didn't tell us."

The nationwide telephone poll of 981 adults has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. The poll, taken Sunday through Wednesday, was in progress when the Justice Department announced that it would investigate accusations that someone in the White House may have leaked the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer.

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