Majority of Americans give positive ratings of Trump's first Congress speech: poll

A solid majority of Americans who watched President Donald Trump's televised first speech to Congress Tuesday night said it was excellent or good, found a latest Gallup poll.

It showed that 34 percent of the speech watchers say Trump's speech is excellent and 23 percent of them say it is good. Twenty-five percent say the speech is just OK, while only 7 percent say it is poor and 9 percent say it is terrible.

As to the speech's impact on their confidence in Trump's abilities to carry out his duties as president, the poll found 36 percent say it made them feel more confident, compared to 11 percent who say it made them feel less confident.

Over half of the speech watchers, or 53 percent, say there is no change in their confidence in Trump, the poll discovered.

Nielsen television ratings for Trump's speech showed 48 million American viewers tuned in live for the speech, slightly lower than the 52 million viewers for former President Barack Obama's first speech to the joint session of Congress in 2009.

There is a partisan gap in the percentage of viewers in terms of their party affiliation.

While 85 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they either watched the speech live or read news reports about it, only 68 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners say they did the same thing.

"Therefore, the positive reactions to Trump's address among speech watchers partly indicate Trump was successful in reaching out to and reinforcing his base," Gallup said in a report.

But Trump's efforts to shift Democrats' views in a more positive direction do not appear to have been successful, Gallup found.

A scant 5 percent of Democrats say they became more confident in Trump after the speech, with 15 percent saying they are less confident and 80 percent saying it made no difference. By contrast, six in 10 Republicans said the speech made them more confident, Gallup found. Enditem.