CNN Poll Shows Massive Pro-Biden Swing From Before To After State of the Union

A CNN flash poll shows President Joe Biden gained massively on a key question asked before and after his State of the Union address: will the president’s policies move the US in the right direction or the wrong direction?

The president blew away expectations Thursday night with a fiery State of the Union speech that many observers noted showcased the sort of energy and sharpness his team wanted to project and which Republican critics pilloried as overly “political.”

During Thursday night’s CNN coverage of the State of the Union and post-speech analysis, political director David Chalian broke down the CNN poll of speech-watchers — an audience that leaned 8 points more Democratic than the general population.

While 64  percent had a positive view of the speech, there was a dramatic swing from before the speech.  On the “right/wrong direction” question, the difference between the pre-speech number on the question — 45 percent “right direction” — and the post-speech number of 62 percent — was a swing of 17 points:

ANDERSON COOPER: David Chalian is here to break it all down. So, David, how are viewers reacting to the speech?

DAVID CHALIAN: Yeah, Anderson, I should just remind everyone this is a poll of speech watchers. So it’s not a poll that is representative of the electorate overall, the way people are used to watching polls. In fact, in this sample of speech watchers, which is normal, it’s a little more democratic than the public is at large, because we find this when a Democrat is president, more Democrats tend to over represent and tune into the speech. Same thing happens on the Republican side when a Republican is president.

The make up here is about 37% Democratic, 30% Republican, 33% independent. So about eight points more Democrat than the country is as a whole.

With that in mind, take a look at these results here. Reaction to Biden’s speech. Among those watching it tonight, 35% said they had a very positive reaction, 29% somewhat positive reaction. That’s 64% their, total and 35% had a negative reaction.

Take a look at that very positive number. How does that compare with Biden’s speeches? Two joint session of Congress passed here. Well, you can see 35% this year, 34% in 2023, 41% in 2022, and 51% 2021. His poll numbers go down here with reviews of his speech, kind of like they have overall with his job approval ratings.

Biden’s policies, will they move the United States in the right direction or wrong direction? 62% said they’re going to move in the right direction, 38% said they’re going to move the country in the wrong direction.

But keep an eye on that 62%, because we also asked how people felt that way prior to the speech. And if you compare here, before the speech started, these speech watchers, only 45% said Biden’s policy would move the US in the right direction with watching the speech that went up from 45% to 62%, again, sort of within the norm of what we’ve seen in the last couple of years for him, this kind of increase in support with people watching the speech.

Watch above via CNN.