Polls Show Trump Speech to Congress Didn’t Change Anything

Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images

About a year ago, the whole political world was focused on polls to determine whether Joe Biden’s feisty March 7 State of the Union Address would improve his fragile public standing. As it turns out, it didn’t, since he got virtually no “bounce” in the polls despite a performance that got rave reviews from Democrats and grudging appreciation from others.

Now, to be clear, Donald Trump isn’t in the same position today, since he has (unless there is a coup d’état) run his last race. But given the recklessness of his early second-term steps and the less-than-secure hold his party has on the U.S. House of Representatives, public support for his agenda still matters. (It seems to even matter to Trump himself, given how often he cites made-up or outlier polling data in his speeches.) So how is the public reacting to his big speech to Congress Tuesday night?

We don’t have much post-speech polling to look at just yet, but what we do have doesn’t indicate much of an impact. The one post-speech approval-rating poll, from Rasmussen Reports, showed his ratio moving from 50 percent positive and 48 percent negative on March 4 to 51-49 percent on March 5, but then back down to 50-48 percent on March 6 for no net gain.

Trump fans were very enthused by two “snap” polls conducted immediately after the speech showing 69 percent (CNN) and 76 percent (CBS) of those who watched the address approving as opposed to 31 percent (CNN) and 23 percent (CBS) disapproving. But the usual “skew” of presidential speech viewers toward the chief executive’s fans was pretty extreme in this case: 44 percent of CNN’s poll respondents were Republicans and only 21 percent were Democrats, and 51 percent of CBS’ speech-watchers were Republicans as opposed to 20 percent who were Democrats. It’s very likely that the self-identified independents responding to these polls were heavily Republican-leaning.

In other words, and unsurprisingly, the polarization of presidential speech-watchers has intensified this year, with Democrats largely tuning out and Trump mostly preaching to the choir. Since Trump pretty much recapitulated the tone and substance of his 2024 campaign speeches, and offered almost nothing in the way of new policy proposals, it stands to reason that the event won’t change much of anything politically. Nor will anyone long remember the scattered Democratic protests on which Republicans shed so many crocodile tears in the immediate wake of the speech, as though Trump himself exhibited “decorum” and “civility” which protesters spoiled. That joint session of Congress he addressed is probably best understood as the last MAGA rally of the 2024 campaign cycle, unless he chooses to keep holding them until the day he leaves office, which is entirely possible.