A majority of the polled speech-watchers said President Donald Trump beat expectations on Tuesday night. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images Poll: Trump SOTU address earned high marks

President Donald Trump earned high marks for his first State of the Union address, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll of Americans who watched the speech earlier this week.

A combined 62 percent of speech-watchers called Trump’s performance “excellent” or “good,” with 17 percent saying Trump did only a fair job, and another 20 percent calling the speech “poor.”


The sample consists of Americans aged 18 or older who said they watched the speech, either live or after it happened. It does not include people who said they watched or listened to news reports about the speech, or who didn’t see or hear anything about the speech at all.

One reason Trump's numbers were so strong: The party-ID breakdown of the sample of speech-watchers was significantly more Republican than the overall electorate — 43 percent of poll respondents said they are Republicans, 29 percent are Democrats and 28 percent are independents. By comparison, in the previous POLITICO/Morning Consult poll — conducted among registered voters, not adults, like the sample of speech-watchers — the party split was 37 percent Democratic, 33 percent Republican and 30 percent independent.

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Slightly more than a third of those who watch the speech, 35 percent, give Trump an “A” grade for the speech, and another 25 percent give him a “B.” Fourteen percent give Trump a “C,” 13 percent give him a “D,” and 13 percent give him a failing, “F” grade.

A majority of the 2,209 speech-watchers also said Trump beat expectations on Tuesday night, according to the poll, which was conducted on Wednesday.

"Among Americans who tuned into the State of the Union, President Trump clearly exceeded expectations," said Morning Consult Co-Founder and Chief Research Officer Kyle Dropp. "Overall, 72 percent of voters said it was somewhat or much better than they expected —and that includes 46 percent of Democrats."

Majorities of those who viewed the address found it optimistic (63 percent), presidential (63 percent) and informative (62 percent). Only 28 percent said it was “depressing,” and just 27 percent said it was “boring.”

Asked if the speech was too long — at an hour and 20 minutes, the speech was the longest State of the Union address since Bill Clinton in 2000 — 39 percent said it was too long, but 48 percent said it wasn’t.

Among those who watched Trump’s speech, 61 percent of them also said they watched Rep. Joe Kennedy III’s (D-Mass.) official Democratic response. Kennedy earned lower marks among these Americans: 48 percent said his speech was “excellent” or “good,” while 46 percent said it was “only fair” or “poor.” But like with the overall sample, Republicans significantly outnumbered Democrats among this subgroup.

The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Morning Consult is a nonpartisan media and technology company that provides data-driven research and insights on politics, policy and business strategy.

More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in these two documents — Toplines: http://politi.co/2Evf3vo | Crosstabs: http://politi.co/2nztMgX