It turns out Joe Biden’s second State of the Union was the speech that wasn’t. It wasn’t uplifting or enlightening or even explanatory. It wasn’t rhetorically strong or politically rational, appealing only to his narrow partisan base. It certainly wasn’t unifying, despite Biden’s many references to unity and calls to work together. …

Biden’s State of the Union failed because it wasn’t connected to the reality that most people experience every day as they live paycheck to paycheck. The speech only reaffirmed the growing suspicion that Joe Biden lives in his own reality, a bubble where losing the House is a win and so are 6 percent inflation, rising gas prices, falling home prices and retirements put at risk by nervous markets. It makes one wonder if he realizes that exit polls showed that Democrats made up only 33 percent of the electorate in the 2022 election, the smallest percentage from 1972 forward.

After a speech like that, one has to ask: Just how out of touch with real America is Joe Biden, or is he just that cynical? CONTINUED

David Winston (Winston Group), Roll Call

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… 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. CONTINUED

Mark Mellman (Mellman Group), The Hill

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