JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: The first results of CNN’s instant poll are in. Let’s get right to CNN’s bureau chief and political director, David Chalian.
David, how did the voters that you snap-polled feel about the speech?
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, first, I just want to mention, Jake, this is a poll of speech watchers, not a poll that is representative of the country overall, or what an electorate, an election looks like. And what we know is that people who tend to be fans or partisans with the president no matter which party the president is in, tend to tune in more on speeches like this.
And that’s the case in tonight’s survey as well because 21 percent Democrat, 44 percent Republican in this sample. 35 percent independent. That’s about 14 points more Republican than the overall general population. So keep that in mind when you see these results of speech watchers.
To the results. What was your reaction to Trump’s speech? 44 percent of speech watchers in our instant poll tonight say they had a very positive reaction to Trump’s speech, 25 percent somewhat positive, 31 percent negative. How does that stack up against Donald Trump’s previous addresses to Joint Sessions of Congress or State of the Union addresses? Look here, for all the years we have data for, 44 percent very positive reaction is actually his low watermark in all our instant polls after his previous addresses.
You see, in 2019, ’18 and ’17, he was higher in terms of very positive speech reaction. And what about to his modern-day predecessors? How does this 44 percent very positive stack up?
Again, it’s the bottom of the barrel here. 51 percent in 2021, when Joe Biden gave his first joint address, were very positive. Donald Trump himself was at 57 percent in 2017. And you see that Bush and Obama even higher than that. So this was not Donald Trump’s best speech, but obviously still the plurality of speech watchers had a very positive reaction to it, Jake.
The ratings were actually pretty good. Mostly old Republicans too But it didn’t seem to help…
Viewership peaked at 37,895,000 from 9:45 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET, Nielsen said. Trump attracted the most viewers, 47.7 million, in his address to Congress in 2017.
Of viewers watching Trump on Tuesday:
5.7% were aged 18-34.
20.5% were aged 35-54.
70.7% were aged 55 and older.
A bunch of his own people were obviously appalled.