
Speech watchers have mostly positive reaction of Biden's State of the Union, CNN poll shows
CNN
A 71% majority of Americans who watched President Joe Biden's State of the Union address had a positive reaction to the speech, according to a CNN Poll conducted by SSRS, with a more modest 41% reacting very positively.
That's a less enthusiastic reception than Biden received for his joint address to Congress last April, when 78% had a positive reaction and 51% reacted very positively. Both Donald Trump and Barack Obama also saw higher enthusiasm for their speeches during their second years in office: 48% of those who tuned in for Trump's 2018 State of the Union were very positive, as were an identical 48% of those who watched Obama's 2010 address. Biden's 41% on that metric matches the previous low in CNN's speech reaction polls dating back to 1998.
Good marks are typical for presidential addresses to Congress, as such speeches tend to attract generally friendly audiences. That's true this year as well: The pool of people who watched Biden speak was about 11 percentage points more Democratic than the general public.