President Joe Biden’s first State of the Union address is now in the books, and analysis of the speech is underway.
After Biden’s remarks on Tuesday night, CNN’s political director David Chalian broke down the results of the network’s poll.
“It’s not a poll obviously of all Americans. That would not be possible. This is a poll of people who watched the speech,” Chalian began. “And what’s important to note about that is that people who watch a president give a State of the Union tend to be more supportive of that president.”
He continued, “Our survey tonight of speech watchers is about 11 points more Democratic… than the overall population in America. So just keep that in mind as we now show you what this instant reaction was of speech watchers tonight.”
The survey found that 41% of speech watchers had a “very positive” reaction to Biden’s address. That is a 10 point drop compared to the reaction to his speech to a joint session of Congress last year.
Twenty-nine percent of watchers said they had a “somewhat positive” reaction, and 29% said they had a “negative reaction.”
Chalian noted, “That 41% is the lowest ‘very positive’ we’ve seen about the last 15 years of instant polling after the State of the Union address.”
In 2018, 48% of viewers said they had a “very positive” reaction to then-President Donald Trump’s State of the Union. And in 2010, 48% had a “very positive” reaction to then-President Barack Obama’s State of the Union.
Finally, the poll found that 69% said Biden did enough to address the crisis in Ukraine. However, a majority of viewers said he did not do enough to address inflation or violent crime.
“We’ve seen over the last year Joe Biden take a slide in the polls. There’s no doubt about it. He’s not just taking a slide with the overall public. He’s also taking a slide, and I think this reflects that the instant reaction to the speech, with people who are even supportive of him… He obviously has been on the decline, there’s nothing in this speech that suggests he turned that around entirely,” Chalian added.
Watch the video below:
CNN's instant poll of SOTU viewers, which leans more Democratic, shows 41% had a "very positive" reaction to Biden's SOTU. Down 10% from last year's joint address.
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) March 2, 2022
It's "the lowest 'very positive' we've seen in about the last 15 years of instant polling after the SOTU address." pic.twitter.com/vZz1q69Gzs
David Litt, a senior speechwriter for former President Barack Obama, had a very positive view of Biden’s speech. He told Fox News, “That was an A speech.”
“He did exactly the things he needed to do. This is a moment when he is trying to remind a lot of Americans who voted for him and who approved of his job performance as recently as June or even September, why they supported him. And I think he did that really effectively,” Litt continued.
Finally, he added, “He was using language that Americans use all the time… So I think that was a reminder of who Joe Biden really is.”
