CNN poll: Trump address to Congress gets modestly positive marks, changes few minds

The Republican-heavy audience that tuned in to hear President Donald Trump’s speech on Tuesday greeted it with tempered positivity, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS.

Speech-watchers broadly said Trump’s policies would take the country in the right direction, with majorities saying the same across five issue areas that were the focus of the president’s speech. But fewer expressed strong confidence in Trump to help people like them, use his presidential power responsibly or provide the nation with real leadership.

Roughly 7 in 10 speech-watchers said they had at least a somewhat positive reaction to Trump’s speech tonight, with a smaller 44% offering a very positive response. That’s lower than the 57% of viewers who rated Trump’s initial address to Congress very positively eight years ago, or the 51% who said the same of President Joe Biden’s initial address in 2021. It also comes just below the 48% “very positive” rating Trump saw for his 2018 State of the Union.