Ignore the Polls, Biden's State of the Union was a Success

No single speech can change a race, but Biden's address helped his standing

It’s been two weeks since President Biden delivered a fiery State of the Union address. The president’s performance buoyed Democratic spirits, lit a fire under our activist base, and silenced calls for him to step aside for a younger Democrat.

The address was the starting gun for an aggressive Biden campaign. The President has hit several battleground states and opportunistically gone after Trump for his support for cutting Social Security and banning abortion. His campaign has opened offices and launched new ads. This is all good stuff.

But some Democrats are already reverting to their natural state — anxious pessimism. Biden gave an amazing speech. Trump made several gaffes. And yet… the polls haven’t moved. There have been a bunch of national and swing state polls since the speech  and almost all of them continue to show Trump with a slight lead nationally and in the battleground states.

Everyone is worried that there was no State of the Union “bounce” or “bump” in the polls. Here’s Ed Kilgore in New York Magazine:

But while the State of the Union did wonders for Democratic optimism, there’s simply not much evidence that it changed many minds about Joe Biden’s job performance or flipped many votes from Republican to Democrat.

And here’s a headline from Yahoo News about their first post-SOTU poll:

Many wonder if the lack of a jump in the polls means Biden’s great speech was for naught.

I know this goes against type, but here’s why you shouldn’t worry too much about the post-State of the Union polls.

The State of the Union Bounce is a Myth

That Yahoo News story tempted me to throw my laptop through a window. The press — and some Democrats — are judging Biden’s State of the Union against an entirely made-up standard. The idea of a “State of the Union bounce” is apocryphal — it’s basically Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. Often talked about, but never seen.

There’s a very simple reason Biden didn’t get a bounce from the State of the Union—it never happens. Back in 2010, Gallup analyzed pre- and post-State of the Union polling for every President since Jimmy Carter. Lo and behold, the speech rarely changes the President’s approval rating.

The only President to see significant improvement was Bill Clinton in 1998, who gave his speech right after his misconduct had been revealed.

So don’t be surprised or worried that Biden’s numbers didn’t spike after the State of the Union. Would I like to see his approval rating go up? Yes. Would I feel better if he was up two instead of down two in the polling average? Absolutely. But it was never realistic to expect a shift based on one speech watched by less than 20% of the total number of people who voted in the last election.

No Need to Panic

In presidential politics, change happens slowly and then suddenly. The horse race is the last number to move, and the President’s approval is the second-to-last number to move. All the underlying numbers come first — strength, trustworthiness, and fighting for someone like you. Pollsters often refer to these as the “character traits.” In every campaign, strategists have specific measures they view as critical to victory. In Obama’s reelection campaign, we were laser-focused on whether voters thought Obama was “fighting for people like them.” If we could beat Mitt Romney on that question, Obama’s approval would go up, and he would pull ahead of Romney.

At this stage of the race, Biden’s team is probably focused on many different elements of voters' views of the President. However, addressing voters’ concerns about the President’s age is undoubtedly near the top of the list. The speech and Biden’s ad campaign were designed to address that issue head-on.

A recent Morning Consult poll shows that Biden’s State of the Union made progress doing just that. According to the poll, the number of voters who say Biden is “too old” dropped by 3 points, but there was significant movement among Democrats (9 points) and Biden 2020 voters (8 points).

This is all good news. Biden’s path to victory begins with winning back his 2020 voters. Trump’s advantage in the polls is entirely because he is winning a higher percentage of his 2020 voters. In the New York Times/Siena poll, Trump has the support of 97% of voters who say they voted for him in 2020, while Biden only has 83% of his 2020 voters.

.Navigator Research did a post-SOTU poll that found:

Seven in ten Americans engaged with the State of the Union this year and a plurality viewed it positively; nearly three in five who watched at least part of the address were positive about the speech.

Overall, I feel very positive about how the State of the Union plays with voters. It kicked off an aggressive period of action that is beginning to show up in the polls. I expect this sort of movement after one widely viewed, well-delivered, and well-received speech. There is a lot of work to do in a short period of time, but the polls following the State of the Union show that Biden accomplished his task. While I typically worry about everything, I am not particularly worried about the post-State of the Union polls.

For more of my analysis of the polling in the 2024 race, check out my Crooked Media subscriber-exclusive podcast Pollercoaster.