Biden’s campaign and some media outlets have pointed to a post-speech instant CNN poll showing 65 percent of viewers offered a positive review of Biden’s speech. Viewers also shifted 17 points toward believing the country is headed in the right direction — from 45 percent before the speech to 62 percent afterward.
Both of these are true. What’s also true is that State of the Union speeches almost always receive strongly favorable views, in part because viewership tends to draw disproportionately from their allies.
The 65 percent who had a positive view of the speech was actually lower than any such speech CNN has polled in the past quarter-century — the previous low being Donald Trump’s 2018 address (70 percent).
And the 35 percent who offered a “very” positive review was effectively tied with Biden’s speech last year (34 percent) for the lowest on record.
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