Trump's SOTU Speech Earns High Marks in Initial Polling

- Historically, immediate polling after a State of the Union address tends to skew positive, as the audience is often composed of more of the president's own party members. For instance, in a 2018 CBS News poll, 42% of viewers of Trump's speech identified as Republican, compared to 24% in a national poll at the time. - The 2026 address was the longest spoken State of the Union in recent history, clocking in at 1 hour and 48 minutes. - Viewership for Trump's 2026 address was approximately 27.8 million across major networks, a decrease of about 12% from his 2025 address to Congress which drew 31.45 million viewers. For comparison, Joe Biden's 2024 State of the Union address was watched by 32.2 million people. - Fox News garnered the largest share of the audience for the 2026 speech with 9.1 million viewers, making it the top network for the sixth straight year for such an address. ABC followed with 5.1 million viewers. - A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll conducted before the speech found the president's approval rating at 39% positive and 60% negative. Polls also indicated that voters' top concerns were the economy and the cost of living. - The address was delivered amidst a partial government shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security, as Democrats demanded more oversight on the administration's immigration policies. - A computational analysis of political speeches from 1880 to the present found that while political speech about immigration has become more positive on average since WWII, President Trump is the first modern president to express more negative sentiment toward immigration than the average member of his own party.