At the beginning of a midterm year where Republicans are predicted to hit stiff headwinds, there were at least some signs from a CNN flash poll — much to the consternation of CNN, no doubt — that President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech moved the needle in the right direction.
According to the flash poll taken by SSRS for the left-leaning cable outlet, 54 percent of speech watchers said before his remarks that they believed Trump’s policies “would move the country in the right direction.”
After the address, the longest to a joint session of Congress in history, 64 percent felt that.
“The share who believed Trump has had the right priorities stood at 44% prior to the speech and 54% immediately following its conclusion,” CNN noted.
There are a few caveats to this, which CNN was certain to point out, as CNN is wont to do.
First off, the people who are watching the State of the Union address tend to be more aligned with the president’s policies than the electorate at large is. This meant that the audience skewed about 13 percentage points more Republican than the electorate as a whole.
Second, watchers wanted to see more talk about the economy: “In the pre-speech survey, a majority of viewers said they most wanted to hear Trump talk about the economy and the cost of living. But nearly half of the audience, 45%, said that, based on Trump’s speech – which set a record for the longest State of the Union address – he was focusing too little on the issue, with 53% saying he’d given the issue the right amount of focus.”
However, they also noted this: “Following the address, 62% of speech-watchers said both that Trump’s economic policies and his immigration policies would move the country in the right direction.”
Finally, presidents usually get good scores for their State of the Union. Joe Biden’s final speech had 65 percent approval, according to the poll — almost identical to Trump’s.
CNN: 64% of speech watchers say President Trump’s polices will move the country in the right direction 🔥 pic.twitter.com/eaYoPeYBnG
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 25, 2026
However, this isn’t great news for Democrats on any front.
For one, you may remember Biden’s final State of the Union speech. Democrats loved it because he appeared as “fiery” and “capable.” Republicans, meanwhile, said that he seemed drugged and a little hyperbolic, but we all had to concede that at least he made it through the speech, and without a major gaffe to boot. It was a few months later, in fact, when the chickens really came home to roost:
Needless to say, the drugs didn’t work. pic.twitter.com/3lYHnU476w
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) June 28, 2024
Second, even if these numbers hold up, if you want to extrapolate them to the public at large, they don’t look fantastic.
We ran two AI models of what the results would look like when extrapolated to the general voting public, given that the poll was conducted among speech-watchers who also tended to be more explicitly Republican. This meant that, if you normalize this among all American electorate as currently composed, this gives you between 52 percent and 57 percent approval of what was being said.
Imperfect? Sure. But there was still grudging acknowledgement that people liked what they saw.
And that brings me to my third point: Perhaps most importantly, viewers liked what they saw while not liking what they saw from the other side. Those who tuned in on Tuesday saw some genuinely crazy stuff — which the president pointed out:
Attempting to recapture his magic of last year, Rep. Al Green walks out of the SOTU address carrying a banner reading “Black People Aren’t Apes.”
It’s all so tired. pic.twitter.com/zqBglSjWR6
— Media Research Center (@theMRC) February 25, 2026
Trump calls out Somalian fraud.
Camera pans to Ilhan Omar crying: pic.twitter.com/eeSyToTRyp
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 25, 2026
Is Rashida Tlaib chanting “KKK” while everyone else chants “USA”? Sure looks like it pic.twitter.com/5nnp0or3Xn
— Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) February 25, 2026
President Trump: “Stand if you agree: The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”
*Democrats remain seated*
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 25, 2026
“These people are crazy” – Trump pointing to Democrats 😂
FACTS pic.twitter.com/5v1Z9ipXew
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 25, 2026
So yeah, that wasn’t a good look. This isn’t even pointing out the extracurriculars like the Democrats who boycotted the speech for their own counter-programming, which was decidedly (to use one of Tim Walz’s favorite words) weird.
If there’s one thing the Democrats had to do on Tuesday, it was to look sane. That’s all they to do. The media would counter Trump’s message with their own braying if they just looked plausibly normal. Mission not accomplished.
Thus, one assumes if they can’t be sufficiently normal to win the biggest night that isn’t election night in 2026, they’re not going to be able to keep the mask on for the rest of the year. Make no mistake: The State of the Union was a huge (dare I say “yuge?”) win for the president, and it’s a great opportunity to build off of. The numbers didn’t lie.
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