TRUMP'S APPROVAL NUMBERS WERE GOOD LAST NIGHT -- ALMOST AS GOOD AS OBAMA'S COMPARABLE NUMBERS

Some on the right will tell you that the instant-poll numbers for President Trump's State of the Union address were extraordinary.



What were the numbers? Here's what CBS told us:



But let's compare those numbers with the numbers for the State of the Union address that began Barack Obama's third year in office. Like Trump, he'd just suffered significant congressional losses for his party in the midterms. So how'd Obama do in 2011?

An overwhelming majority of Americans approved of the overall message in President Obama's State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, according to a CBS News poll of speech watchers.

According to the poll, which was conducted online by Knowledge Networks immediately after the president's address, 91 percent of those who watched the speech approved of the proposals Mr. Obama put forth during his remarks. Only nine percent disapproved.

Last year, 83 percent of viewers approved of Mr. Obama's State of the Union remarks.

And what about CNN?

A CNN poll conducted by ssrs following President Trump's State of the Union address Tuesday night found that 59% of viewers had a very positive reaction to the speech, 17% had a somewhat positive reaction and 23% had a negative reaction.

That's a total of 76% approval. How did Obama do at CNN in 2011?

CNN ... ran an instant poll with its Opinion Research partner. They found that 52 percent of those who had watched the speech had a "very positive" reaction and an additional 32 percent had an "somewhat positive" response. An overall positive mark of 84 percent ain't bad.

The overall positive number was 84% to Trump's 76%. And while Trump's "very positive" number was higher, there may be an explanation for that:

President Donald Trump's State of the Union address drew a deeply Republican audience, which largely gave the President strong reviews for his address from the House chamber, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS immediately following the speech.

... the audience had the largest partisan tilt measured in any CNN instant poll following a presidential address to Congress dating back to 2001 -- viewers were roughly 17 points more likely than the general public to identify as Republicans, and were largely fans of the President.

And CBS said the same thing:

As is often the case in State of the Union addresses, the people who watched tonight's speech leaned more towards the president's own party, at least compared to Americans overall. In the latest CBS national poll released last month, 25 percent of Americans identified themselves as Republicans. Among those who watched Tuesday night's address, that figure was 43 percent, and Republicans helped bolster the overall approval of the address.

So don't take those numbers too seriously.