One of the political websites that I enjoy reading on a frequent basis is Real Clear Politics. They always have a collection of great articles (from a variety of different websites/newspapers, daily polling numbers, and they cover things from all political perspectives. A recent article posted onto the website caught my eye. This article was a report of how different voters felt about the State of the Union as presented by President Trump.

I first note that I have friends on social media from both sides of the aisle. It always interests me when something happens in political news. The reaction is typically some of my friends reporting how great the news was and others talking about how the world is going to end. Sometimes I even wonder if these people are all reacting to the same occurrence.

What I found interesting about the reaction to the State of the Union was how well it was received by people from different political backgrounds. A Pew Research Center article breaks down the Presidential approval ratings of Presidents from Barack Obama back to Dwight Eisenhower and you will notice the gap that exists based on approval from Republicans vs. Democrats (the chart below outlines that):

It is no secret that Democrats have been rather disapproving of Donald Trump. It is for this reason that the State of the Union approval numbers are surprising to me. The percentage of voters who approved of the speech were:

Republicans- 97%
Democrats- 43%
Independents- 72%

The high percentage of Republicans who supported the speech leads me to believe that either the “Never Trump” faction of the Republican Party is smaller than expected or even those who dislike Donald Trump happened to like this speech. Currently, as of mid-January Donald Trump has just a 7% approval rating amongst Democrats, according to Gallup. This low approval rating when compared to a 43% approval of the State of the Union is the contrast that I found most interesting.

Finally, having 72% of Independents approve of the speech is a key factor. These voters are crucial when looking to win crucial swing states in November. We still have a long way to go until November 2020 but this was an interesting statistic to say the least. In the coming weeks, I look forward to authoring an article that discusses the overall approval ratings of Donald Trump vs. Barack Obama and discussing why those numbers are relevant for November.