On behalf of the Voter Participation Center and the American Federation of Teachers, Democracy Corps conducted live dial-meter testing of the 2020 State of the Union address among the Rising American Electorate, white working-class women and men, and white college women. Here are some of the key findings:
President Donald Trump gave a deeply divisive State of the Union Speech that produced lame gains in his job approval and personal favorability, the defining issues in the election, and with the white working class that made his abrupt ascent to the presidency possible. The speech included an unrivaled spectacle of Americans living through tragedy. Yet after the speech, over 60 percent across these base and swing groups said Trump was divisive, self-dealing, and governing for the rich and big money elites.
These findings are based on the responses of 257 participants — African Americans, Hispanics, white millennials, white unmarried women, white college women, and white working class men and women — who filled in pre- and post-speech surveys and reacted to the speech in real time with ratings on a 1-to -100 scale, with 50 the mid-point.
