CBS Evening News

State Of the Union: How'd He Do?

By Kathleen Frankovic

January 24, 2007 / 2:14 PM EST / CBS News

What did viewers think of the President's speech last night? CBS News Director of Surveys Kathleen Frankovic has a snapshot, from an instant poll.

(AP Photo/Larry Downing, Pool)

Who watches the State of the Union message? Usually, the audience is rooting for the President to begin with. When it's a Democrat in the White House, Democrats are more likely to watch, and when it's a Republican in the White House, Republicans are more likely to tune him in. So when polling the public's reaction, it's important to know WHO is watching as well as what they think.

CBS News has been measuring instant response to State of the Union messages for more than a decade. This year, as we have since 2000, we partnered with Knowledge Networks, who have assembled a random sample of the public, given all of them access to the internet, and posed questions as the speech ended to a sample of more than 500 of those who said they planned to watch. Those watchers are older than the adult population as a whole, they are likley to be more interested in politics, and they like the President more than those who don't watch. In fact, their pre-speech approval rating was 43% -- 15 points higher than the approval rating among all adults in the last CBS News Poll conducted before the speech.

But even those watchers had pre-speech doubts. Before the speech a majority opposed sending over 20,000 aditional troops to Iraq. Six in ten didn't think the Presdient shared their priorities. And by two to one they disapproved of the way President Bush was handling the issue of immigration.

The President was successful in changing some of those minds. Eight in ten watchers said they approved of most of the proposals he made in the speech, and support for the troop surge jumped to 52% after the speech (although nearly as many still opposed the surge). 53%, up from 38% before the speech, now said the President shared their priorities. Mr. Bush may have changed the most minds on the issue of immigration, rasing his approval rating on that issue from 31% beforehand to 56% afterwards. It's not clear from the poll, however, what exactly about his immigration proposals was most liked.

But even those speechwatchers, with their overall positive assessment of what the President said, remained skeptical on one important quesion -- whether or not his proposals will ever become law. 59% of speech watchers said they did not think the Presdient and the Democrats in Congress would be able to work together in a fair and non-partisan manner.

As for the long term effect of the speech? That will depend on what the rest of the country - those younger, less politically engaged, and less favorable towards the President see and hear in the coming days and weeks.