Pomp and circumstance returned just in time for President Biden to deliver an outstanding State of the Union address (SOTU) yesterday. He defined the stakes in Ukraine, while making clear his central role in uniting the world against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression.
The president acknowledged the economic challenges confronting us and mapped out ways to meet them, while also clearly articulating the progress made as a result of his stewardship.
He made clear we are finally winning the battle against the pandemic, while offering historic remedies for bigotry and exclusion.
While it was a great speech, don’t overestimate its likely impact. Rarely do State of the Union speeches yield significant or lasting effect on presidents’ approval ratings.
While these speeches generate vast coverage, the central tendency is for these annual national rituals to leave only a barely perceptible trace in the public consciousness.
Since 1978, the average State of the Union has had less than a 1-point impact on public approval of the president’s performance. Indeed, approval ratings are almost as likely to fall as to rise in the wake of these addresses.
Only six SOTUs produced upward movement of 4 points or more. Master communicator former President Clinton holds title to three of those six addresses.
While former President Reagan was styled the “Great Communicator,” none of his SOTU addresses generated even 4 points of upward movement in his approval rating. In fact, three of his speeches resulted in perceptible declines in his approval rating.
Nonetheless, by the time you read this, you’ll probably be swimming in instant polls purporting to portend big shifts in public attitudes.
Pro tip: That almost always happens, and usually portends nothing.
Generally, these polls ask about support for the presidents’ policies and huge numbers support the proposals offered by presidents in these speeches.
But these seemingly intense reactions do not translate into meaningful change in the indicator that has real political consequences—presidential approval.
Approval ratings are important precisely because, unlike many other poll questions, they bear a demonstrated relationship to both legislative and electoral outcomes. The higher the approval rating, the more presidents get done legislatively, and the better their parties do in congressional and presidential elections.
Other poll questions make big headlines but don’t necessary mean much.
For example, one of the strongest positive reactions to SOTU policies was for George W. Bush’s 2002 address. What happened to Bush’s approval rating after the speech? It went down 2 points.
The weakest positive reaction was also to a Bush speech, in 2006. The result: his approval rating dropped 1 point.
Why do pundits assume these speeches change public attitudes, despite the evidence?
First, because the audiences for State of the Union addresses are huge. True; yet they comprise only a minority of the country. In 2020, 36 million American adults watched the speech, a big number. But that’s less than 15 percent of the nation’s adult population.
Because of the war in Ukraine, this year’s audience could well be substantially larger, but it’s unlikely that a majority of Americans will hear the president’s speech.
Big changes in this relatively small sliver of the country can be muted in the population as a whole. A 15-point jump among 15 percent of the country is just over 2 percent of the nation as a whole.
Moreover, the instant poll questions on which these surveys rely are just that: instant. Only the truly hardened aren’t moved immediately after hearing an hourlong presidential pitch.
The proposals advanced in these addresses appear sound and are presented in the most glowing terms possible.
But as commentary points out flaws and failings, distortions and disagreements, people settle back into their preexisting habits and attitudes.
Approval numbers can be moved, but it takes more than a great speech. Raising the president’s approval rating requires real world successes over the next eight months.
Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has helped elect 30 U.S. senators, 12 governors and dozens of House members. Mellman served as pollster to Senate Democratic leaders for over 20 years, as president of the American Association of Political Consultants, and is president of Democratic Majority for Israel.