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State of the Union Address (Miss Lucas)

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It's the lowest net positive rating for a State of the Union address since at least 1998, when CNN first asked the question. There is no equivalent poll for addresses before 1998.

Some important caveats: This survey reflects the views of only those who watched the speech, not of all Americans. The poll was conducted among a group of Americans who said in prior interviews that they planned to watch the speech and were willing to be contacted after its conclusion.

People who choose to watch a political speech tend to be more supportive of the speaker than the general population; this sample was about 7 points more Republican than the entire American population.

A narrow majority of viewers, 54%, says it thinks Trump has the right priorities, down from 63% from a similar poll after his speech last year to a joint session of Congress. Not quite half, 45%, say he hasn't paid attention to the country's most important problems.

Still, more than 6 in 10 viewers, 62%, say they think his policies will move the country in the right direction. But more than 4 in 10 people who watched the address say they are not confident in his abilities to carry out his duties as President.

Only 56% of viewers say they think his policies are headed in the right direction on immigration -- down 6 points since his 2017 speech. His proposals on other issues are higher: Roughly 8 in 10 people who viewed Trump's address say he has the right direction on infrastructure and 7 in 10 say he's going the right direction on the economy.

A majority of Americans who watched Trump's speech to Congress last year, 57%, said they had a very positive reaction. Two-thirds or more said Trump had the right priorities for the nation, his policies were headed the right direction and the speech made them feel more optimistic.

Only 48% of viewers had a very positive view of Obama's first State of the Union address, though a larger portion had a somewhat positive reaction, giving him a net positive score of 78% in 2010. He also did better during his first address to Congress, just after being inaugurated in 2009. Then, 68% said they had a very positive view of his address.

The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS on January 30, 2018, among 549 Americans who watched Trump's address. Respondents were first interviewed as part of a random national samples conducted from January 14-18 and January 25-28. In those interviews, respondents indicated they planned to watch Tuesday night's speech and said they were willing to be re-interviewed. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.

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trump gets least positive state of the union reaction in at least 20 years - cnnpolitics

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CNN Instant poll: Trump gets least positive reaction in at least 20 years

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It's the lowest net positive rating for a State of the Union address since at least 1998, when CNN first asked the question. There is no equivalent poll for addresses before 1998. Some important caveats: This survey reflects the views of only those who watched the speech, not of all Americans.

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Trump's SOTU Triumph: The numbers are in for President Trump's first State of the Union address and it's clear large majorities of the public liked what they saw and heard on Tuesday night. A snap poll conducted by CBS News/YouGov showed 75 percent approved of Trump's speech, with another 65 percent saying it made them feel "proud." A CNN snap-poll found 70 percent saying they had a "very positive" or "somewhat positive" reaction to Trump's speech. And an NBC News/Survey Monkey poll released Thursday evening showed 60 percent of those who watched the speech said Trump "focused on the right things." Thirty-five percent said they were "enthusiastic" about the address, with another 21 percent saying they were "satisfied" with it.

Tax Cuts Rising: A new poll from Monmouth University shows the public's opinion of the sweeping Republican tax reform signed into law late last year has improved dramatically. In December, only 26 percent approved of the plan, while 47 percent disapproved. Now, approval is up 18 points to 44 percent, while 44 percent disapprove.

Not surprisingly, the passage of tax reform also helped President Trump's standing with the public. Now 55 percent say Trump has been at least somewhat successful in getting his agenda through Congress, while 41 percent say he hasn't been successful. That represents a net 27-point swing in his favor from last month, when 42 percent said Trump had been successful at passing his agenda while 55 percent said he had not.

Sea Change on Tariffs: In yet another sign that Donald Trump has refashioned the Republican Party in his image, a new YouGov poll shows a majority of Republicans in favor of raising tariffs. Fifty-five percent now say raising tariffs on foreign-made goods protects American jobs. Only 12 percent disagree and 33 percent are not sure. Conversely, just 18 percent of Democrats agree that raising tariffs protects jobs in the U.S., while 39 percent disagree and 43 percent are not sure.

Further, 58 percent of Republicans favor raising tariffs on imported products to protect American jobs, even if that means higher prices for American consumers. Only 20 percent of Republicans oppose the idea. Among Democrats, just 27 percent favor raising tariffs if it means higher prices in the U.S., while 46 percent oppose raising tariffs.

America Blue Again? A new Gallup survey shows that, for the first time in three years, more states are solidly or lean Democratic than are solidly or lean Republican - at least based on residents' self-reported party preferences. Gallup used the following guidelines for its rating: States with less than a five-percentage-point difference between Democrats and Republicans were labeled "competitive"; states with a five- to 10-percentage-point difference were labeled "leaning" toward one party or the other; and states that had a 10-percentage-point difference or more were considered "solid." Democrats tallied 19 states in their column (15 "solid" and four in the "lean" category) versus 16 states that went to Republicans (13 "solid" and 3 "lean"), with 15 states falling into the "competitive" category.

As a point of reference, after Barack Obama's election in 2008, Democrats held 35 states (29 "solid" and six "lean") to just five for Republicans (four "solid" and one "lean"), which translated to a 30-point net advantage nationally among those who self-identified as Democrats over Republicans. By the time President Obama left office in 2016, the number of states held by Democrats had been slashed to 14, and the number of Republican states had quadrupled to 21, with the GOP holding a seven-point advantage nationally in self-identification.

Fly, Eagles, Fly! Three polls out this week confirm the public is rooting for the Philadelphia Eagles to win Super Bowl LII. A Morning Consult shows 45 percent favoring the Eagles to just 26 percent rooting for the New England Patriots. A Marist poll mirrors those findings: 39 percent favor the Eagles and 26 percent favor the Pats. The support for the defending Super Bowl champs is even lower in a Monmouth University poll released Thursday. A tiny 18 percent want to see New England win another championship, while 43 percent would like to see the Eagles hoist their first Super Bowl trophy. Perhaps not surprisingly, after a tumultuous year in the National Football League, interest in the big game is not high: Just 21 percent say they "have a lot of interest" in the game, and another 49 percent say the most interesting part of this year's broadcast will be the TV commercials.

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The Takeaway: The State of Trump's Union -- Positive | RealClearPolitics

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Trump's SOTU Triumph: The numbers are in for President Trump's first State of the Union address and it's clear large majorities of the public liked what they saw and heard on Tuesday night. A snap poll conducted by CBS News/YouGov showed 75 percent approved of Trump's speech, with another 65 percent saying it made them feel "proud."

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This article is part of the Opinion Today newsletter. You can sign up here to receive the newsletter each weekday.
It's hard to imagine a worse distinction for a country to hold. A recent study in the journal Health Affairs concluded that the United States has become "the most dangerous of wealthy nations for a child to be born into."

Perhaps most damning, our country didn't used to hold this status. In the 1960s, the death rate of American children was slightly lower than in other affluent nations. But three factors have changed that:

1. Other countries have had far more success reducing infant mortality. The reasons aren't fully known, but the uneven American social safety net seems to play a role.

2. Other countries have more sharply reduced vehicle deaths, which are a particular scourge for teenagers. (The United States could easily do the same, as I explained in a recent column.)

3. The United States suffers from an epidemic of shooting deaths, which are nearly nonexistent elsewhere. The gun homicide rate in this country is 49 times higher than in other rich countries, according to the Health Affairs study.

By now, you've probably heard about the at least 17 people, mostly high-school students, murdered in South Florida yesterday. You've also probably heard a lot of substance-free condolences. Here's the truth: The teenagers killed in Florida yesterday had the misfortune of growing up - of trying to grow up - in a country that didn't care enough about their lives.

May we honor them with anger that does not cease until the unnecessary deaths of children do.

Related: Nick Kristof argues for a public-health approach to gun violence.

Survivors of mass shootings and relatives of gun victims call on Congress to act, in a Times video.

Quoctrung Bui and Margot Sanger-Katz break down public opinion.

Max Fisher and Josh Keller compare gun deaths around the world.

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Opinion | The Truth About the Florida School Shooting

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This article is part of the Opinion Today newsletter. You can sign up here to receive the newsletter each weekday. It's hard to imagine a worse distinction for a country to hold. A recent study in the journal Health Affairs concluded that the United States has become "the most dangerous of wealthy nations for a child to be born into."

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Gun Rights (Miss Lucas)

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Between 2006 to 2010, the last period for which more comprehensive annual data on the denial of firearm applications by the background check system are available, there were 377,283 denials. But the federal government prosecuted only 460 of those cases, leading to 209 convictions, mostly on charges of providing false information. There was a similarly small number of state prosecutions resulting from the gun purchase denials.

Why didn't more of those denials lead to perjury prosecutions? According to my analysis, the reason is simple: a high percentage of cases are dropped because the applicant was wrongly denied clearance to buy a gun.

Many of those people are trying to buy guns to protect themselves. "This incredibly high rate of false positives imposes a real burden on the most vulnerable people," said Reagan Dunn, the first national coordinator for Project Safe Neighborhoods, a Justice Department program started in 2001 to ensure gun laws are enforced.

The system also does a poor job of accounting for people who have had their rights to buy a firearm taken away and then restored. In the 1990s, Frank Wise of Jacksonville Beach, Fla., was convicted of check fraud after his employer went bankrupt. When his paycheck bounced, two checks he sent to his mortgage company also bounced. Nearly 20 years later, Mr. Wise was able to get his record cleared, but that information wasn't entered into the background check system for three years. Getting this fixed cost him $3,600 in legal fees.

Even more people would face such problems if background checks were made "universal," meaning to include the private sale or transfer of firearms, which are exempt from checks in most states.Many people consider this a common-sense policy, but there would be a cost: Background checks involve fees that drive up the price of guns in private sales and make it harder for poor people to defend themselves.

To get some idea of what background checks add to the price of a weapon, look at the fees for checks on private transfers in states that already impose checks. In New York City and Washington, those fees cost at least $125 for private gun sales.

If people believe that background checks reduce crime and benefit everyone, everyone should pay for it, out of general government revenue. Pushing background checks on private transfers as proposed during the hearing disarms many law-abiding poor people.

So what should be done when the background check system fails to stop mass killers from attacking? One answer is to have more civilians carry permitted concealed handguns. Those law-abiding gun owners can help protect places where there are no police. In 2013, PoliceOne, a news and resource site for active and retired law enforcement officers, released a survey finding that over 91 percent of the more than 15,000 "verified law enforcement professionals" who responded supported concealed carry.

We do need to fix the background check system. But let's really fix it. Let's make sure that rare cases like Devin Kelley can't slip through the cracks, but let's also make sure that the government stops preventing millions of law-abiding citizens from buying guns for protection. Adding more names without fixing these problems will only disarm law-abiding Americans.

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sutherland springs  tex  shooting (2017)

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Opinion | Background Checks Are Not the Answer to Gun Violence

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Between 2006 to 2010, the last period for which more comprehensive annual data on the denial of firearm applications by the background check system are available, there were 377,283 denials. But the federal government prosecuted only 460 of those cases, leading to 209 convictions, mostly on charges of providing false information.