Mellman: Will President Biden’s State of the Union move numbers?   

It’s State of the Union time, so wrongheaded expectations and misleading renderings of history require correction once again.   

One colleague inaccurately opined on television that “historically presidents get a little bump [from the address] … and then it flattens out.” Another commentator wrongly asserted that presidents are “aways helped” by these speeches.  

You have the advantage of having heard what I’m sure was a marvelous speech; I’m writing before it was given.  

But history is clear.   

Very rarely do State of the Union speeches meaningfully improve presidents’ approval ratings. Moving numbers is not really the key objective, and that should not be the criteria by which they are judged.  

Examining ratings before and after these addresses demonstrates that since 1978, the average State of the Union has had an impact of less than two-tenths of a percentage point on presidential approval. Infinitesimal.  

In fact, it is slightly more common for approval ratings to worsen than to improve.   

Only five speeches produced upward movement of 4 points or more. Former President Clinton, a master communicator, delivered three of those five addresses.   

Though dubbed the “Great Communicator,” none of President Reagan’s State of the Union addresses generated more than a 3-point increase in his approval rating; two seemed to produce declines of 4 points or more.   

Former President Trump improved his ratings after just one of his State of the Union speeches, by a meager 2 points.  

Nonetheless, by the time you read this, you will probably be inundated with instant polls purporting to portend big shifts in public attitudes.  

Those polls usually portend nothing.  

Generally, they inquire about reactions to the speech and/or support for the policies presented. Significant numbers usually like the speech and favor the proposals offered. But these seemingly intense reactions rarely translate into meaningful change in the indicator that has real political consequences: presidential approval.  

Unlike the questions on the instant polls, presidential job approval is highly correlated with electoral and legislative results. Reactions to a State of the Union, and the policies presented in it, are not.   

Indeed, they aren’t even correlated with changes in approval.  

The strongest positive reaction in CNN’s instant poll data was for former President George W. Bush’s 2002 address. How was Bush’s approval rating affected? It worsened by 2 points.  

The least positive reaction was also to a Bush speech, in 2006. Afterward his approval rating dropped 1 point.  

Why the disconnect between the perceptions of the commentariat and the instant polls on the one hand, and reality on the other?   

First, commentators assume big audiences mean big impacts. Biden’s last address had an audience of about 38 million. That’s a large number, but well below this century’s record of 62 million viewers in 2003. But even that record-setting event found just 21 percent of the country viewing the address, while only 11 percent of the country tuned in to Biden’s last address.    

Big changes in this relatively small slice of the country are muted in the population as a whole. A 15-point jump in a president’s approval rating among 20 percent of the country would register just a 3-point increase in the nation as a whole.  

Second, these surveys are just that: instant. Only the truly hardened are unmoved immediately after hearing an hourlong presidential pitch. The proposals appear sound, having been presented in glowing terms. But as commentary points out flaws and failings, distortions and disagreements, voters settle back into their preexisting attitudes.  

Numbers can be moved, but it takes more than a great speech. Raising a president’s approval rating requires not just great messaging and legislative triumphs but a continuation of real improvements in peoples’ lives.     

This speech may well mark the unofficial start of Biden’s reelection campaign, but no one should judge the efficacy of that campaign by the impact of the speech on his approval rating.  

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.