Want to know the fate of President Trump’s agenda in Congress?

You could do worse than to watch the hands and feet of the Democrats who attended Tuesday’s joint meeting, where the many rounds of applause were a telltale sign.

Outwardly, Democrats projected an image of firm resistance. Many women dressed in suffragette white, and dozens of House members barely ever rose from their seats while their Republican counterparts roared with applause.

But on select issues, key Democratic lawmakers offered measured applause — and, occasionally, flat-out standing ovations — to Trump’s bully-pulpit pitches.

[Trump gives his hard-line campaign promises a more moderate tone in address to Congress]

And a core group of Democratic senators from red and purple states routinely applauded many of Trump’s pronouncements, particularly on economic matters.

Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) have obvious reasons to stay at least a little cozy with Trump, given that they all will be running for reelection next year in states he won handily.

“I’m there representing the people in my state, and when I hear something that’s important to the people of my state, I’m going to acknowledge that,” Heitkamp said.

Manchin, who will be running for reelection next year in a state where Trump won nearly 70 percent of the vote in November, is in a category of his own.

While virtually every other Democrat quickly scurried out of the House chamber after Trump finished his speech, Manchin took up residence on the aisle to greet the new president as he left — then made his way to the hordes of reporters in Statuary Hall to sing Trump's praises.

“It sounded like the Donald Trump that’s maturing into a president,” Manchin said.

[President Trump’s surprisingly presidential speech to the nation, annotated]

But senators such as Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Angus King (I-Maine) -- not known for regularly cozying up to Republicans — also offered Trump visible support at times.

When Trump said he had ordered new pipelines to be built with American steel, Shaheen applauded. When Trump talked about displaying Harley-Davidson motorcycles on the White House lawn, Baldwin cheered for a home-state company. When Trump said he wanted to make it more difficult for companies to leave the country and take jobs and profits abroad, Stabenow stood up in recognition of the jobs her state has already lost.

And when Trump pledged to “help ensure new parents have paid family leave,” plenty of Democrats leapt to their feet. In some cases, they became part of the standing ovation a lot faster than the Republicans did.

“I think it’s really hard to disagree with the vision and the aspirations of this speech,” Heitkamp said. “I think the devil’s always in the detail.”

There was plenty to temper any encouragement Trump might have received from Democrats. Trump’s red-meat promises to repeal the Affordable Care Act earned a roar from Republicans, but there wasn’t even a smattering of applause from the red-state Democrats.

Most said afterward they worried that there is little hope that the tax credits and health savings accounts Trump backs will provide enough financial support to prevent millions of people who rely on the Affordable Care Act from losing insurance coverage.

Former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear tried to drive home those concerns in the official Democratic response to the speech. Any effort to repeal the legislation, he argued, would harm some of the very people who helped Trump get to the White House.

“They’re farmers, restaurant workers, part-time teachers, nurses’ aides, construction workers and entrepreneurs working at high-tech start-ups,” Beshear said from a Lexington diner. “Before the Affordable Care Act, they woke up every morning and went to work, praying they wouldn’t get sick; knowing they were just one bad diagnosis away from bankruptcy.”

The only enthusiasm on the Democratic side of the aisle for the dismantling of former president Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement came from Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who sat next to his gym buddy Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) and stuck out like a Make America Great Again hat at a Bernie Sanders rally every time he stood to applaud.

The same went for Trump’s plan to create a Homeland Security office to serve the victims of crimes committed by illegal immigrants and, with a few exceptions, his proposal to expand school-choice programs to “millions of African American and Latino children.”

It’s no surprise that if Trump hopes to make progress on divisive campaign agenda items like health care and immigration, he’ll have to do it without Democrats. But if the go-it-alone strategy stalls out for the GOP, there are a ready set of issues on which bipartisan deals can be made: the bread-and-butter economic issues on which Trump broke from the Republican establishment.

Trump already is facing tough arithmetic on Capitol Hill. The GOP might have majorities in both houses of Congress, but the 52 Republican senators can’t break a filibuster without enlisting at least eight Democrats. And in the House, gathering 218 GOP votes on complex issues like health care and tax reform is not a simple task.

Many Democrats singled out Trump’s tough talk on cutting the “artificially high” cost of prescription drugs as an issue on which Democrats would be hard-pressed to disagree.

“The one that I shot out of my chair for was lowering drug prices,” King said. “I’m prepared to work with him on that.”

King, who identifies as an independent but meets and typically votes with Democrats, said he does not see it as partisan issue and would be willing to serve as an emissary between Trump and Democrats in Congress on drug-price discussions.

Several of his Democratic colleagues said they would happily join King in reaching out to Trump on legislation to cut drug costs.

“The fact that he brought up the prescription drug prices, I thought that was good,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). “I didn’t think he was going to do that.”

Klobuchar also praised Trump’s pledge to pursue a $1 trillion infrastructure plan, a “new program of national rebuilding.” But, she emphasized, the details matter.

“If there is a proposal on bringing prescription drug costs down that makes sense and works, great. If there’s something on infrastructure, good,” she said. “We have to see what he actually proposes.”