President Trump's recent comments on the NFL have led to several polls trying to decipher how Americans feel about his remarks. A Reuters/Ipsos poll shows a "majority of Americans disagree" with Trump’s "assertion that football players should be fired for kneeling during the national anthem." REUTERS' Chris Kahn noted the poll, conducted Sept. 25-26, found that 57% of adults do not think the NFL should "fire players who kneel." This included 61% of NFL fans who "watch at least a few games per season." The results were "split along party lines," as 82% of Democrats and 29% of Republicans "disagreed with the president’s comments about firing football players." Forty percent of Americans said that they "support the stance that some pro football players have made to not stand during the anthem," which is up from 28% who "answered the same way in a similar" poll last year. The poll "gathered responses from 1,622 people, including 628 Democrats, 583 Republicans and 919 people who watched a football game at least a few times during the season." The poll has a credibility interval of 5% (REUTERS, 9/26).
FOCUS GROUP: A Firehouse Strategies and 0ptimus poll out this week shows while the nation is divided on Trump’s call to fire NFL players, voters overwhelmingly (64%) said that the president should focus on other issues. Thirty-eight percent agree with Trump’s assertion that players who kneel should be fired, while 39.1% disagree. The remaining 22.8% are not sure. The poll surveyed 1,801 likely midterm voters in Florida (683), Wisconsin (294), Pennsylvania (413) and Ohio (411) by phone from Sept. 24-25. Margin of error is generally plus or minus 2.4% (Firehouse Strategies).
MORE POLLS: The HOLLYWOOD REPORTER's Paul Bond cited a poll by Remington Research Group as stating that 46% of adults who voted in the last presidential election have a "favorable opinion of Trump" while just 37% have a favorable opinion of the NFL, and only 12% have a "favorable opinion of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell." Remington Research Group "works primarily with Republicans." The poll found that 50% of Americans are "less likely to watch football because of the protests" while 30% are "more likely." Remington found that 19% of Americans have "watched more football this year" but that 51% have "watched less." Of those watching less, 69% said that it is "because they do not appreciate 'players using the NFL as a stage for their political views.'" That number is "way up from a J.D. Power survey taken prior to the opening game" of the '17 season that found 30% of those watching less NFL football are "doing so because of the protests involving players kneeling" during the national anthem. Remington's survey included 1,945 general election voters, and its margin of error is plus or minus 2.3% with a 95% confidence level (HOLLYWOODREPORTER.com, 9/26).
