Biden Approval Spikes Following Electric SOTU Speech

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Many of those who watched the State of the Union address that President Joe Biden gave before Congress on Tuesday thought positively of his remarks and the policy approach that he outlined, according to polling released by CNN.

A full 72 percent of respondents who watched the speech shared a positive reaction to it, per the outlet, with 34 percent of the overall total citing a specifically very positive reaction. Notably, a full 52 percent of those who are 65 and older shared a specifically very positive reaction to Biden’s remarks. Most of those who watched also shared that they felt the proposals Biden outlined “would move the country in the right direction,” according to CNN. A full 71 percent shared that perspective. The polling measured reactions to the president from the same group of respondents before the speech, and only 52 percent expressed the same confidence in Biden’s policies at that point. The jump following the president’s remarks suggests, of course, that conservative outlets like Fox News would lose support if they simply aired what the president had to say instead of fantasy scenarios like the so-called Green New Deal and imaginary Communism.

Even among those who said they disapproved overall of Biden’s job performance, a full 45 percent shared that relative confidence in his policy approach after hearing his remarks, which were repeatedly punctuated by attention-grabbing outbursts from Republicans. The relatively positive perspective mirrors both past perspectives from the public on presidential speeches to Congress and Biden’s generally stable position in other polling on the public’s level of approval for how he is handling his job. The elections data and analysis site FiveThirtyEight reported Wednesday that an average of 43 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of his office, which is slightly ahead of the only 40.7 percent on average who said as of that same point they had a favorable view of Donald Trump.

Trump predictably had a lot of his own commentary on Biden’s speech. “He seems to be very angry, shouting into the mic, when he’s trying to come across as conciliatory,” he posted Tuesday, referring to Biden’s delivery. “Perhaps somebody should walk up to the dais, tap him on the shoulder, and say, “Be cool!”” It’s remarkable for Trump to act as though he is in a position to be a credible authority about coming across as a levelheaded public speaker. Trump also restated the claim he could personally end the war between Ukraine and Russia within a day, which is nonsensical. Trump’s record on foreign policy in office was largely a series of failures, including his outreach to North Korea that didn’t turn into much of anything. Among other gibberish, Donald also suggested putting Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in a straitjacket.