While Gov. Rick Scott remains generally unpopular, his months-long charm offensive and singular focus on jobs creation may be slowly winning Floridians over, according to a new Times/Herald/Bay News 9 poll.

More than 4 in 10 Florida voters, 43 percent, approve of Scott’s job performance a year into his first term; 47 percent disapprove, while 10 percent are not sure.

Those numbers, while not fantastic — they remain worse than President Barack Obama’s approval rating in the state, for example — represent a marked improvement for a man who took office facing an extremely polarized electorate.

“His numbers aren’t great. He is still not where he needs to be in order to get reelected,” said Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, which conducted the poll. “But people don’t seem to have such a negative gut reaction. The makeover’s working.”

The telephone survey of 800 registered Florida voters — all likely to vote in the general election — was conducted Jan. 24-26 for the Times, The Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald, Bay News 9 and Central Florida News 13. The poll was conducted by Mason-Dixon, a nonpartisan, Jacksonville-based company. The margin of error is 3.5 percentage points.

The poll shows that more men approve of Scott’s performance than women — 47 percent compared to 38 percent — and that while Scott is popular in Republican-rich Southwest Florida (51 percent approve compared to 38 percent who disapprove), the script flips in Democratic Southeast Florida. There, just 33 percent of voters approve the governor, compared to 58 percent who disapprove.

Seven in 10 Republicans approve of Scott’s performance; 7 in 10 Democrats disapprove.

In a separate question, voters were asked whether they recognize Scott favorably or unfavorably. Thirty-five percent of voters recognized Scott favorably, 39 percent recognized Scott unfavorably.

Scott in recent months has reshaped his image in big ways and small — from ditching his dark business suits for khakis and casual buttoned-down shirts, to reversing course on cuts to education funding, to blitzing talk radio shows across the state.

“He’s politically playing smart and you’re seeing his numbers improve,” Coker said.