D'OH! Looks Like There WAS a State of the Union Polling Bounce (Just NOT for Biden)

Doug P. | 2:37 PM on March 13, 2024

Just after President Biden's State of the Union address last Thursday, CNN reported that about 60 percent of viewers had a positive response to what was basically an angry campaign speech. But for a SOTU speech that's a low number.

Then the Biden White House waited for what's often an inevitable post-SOTU polling bump. It looks like there was a bump, but it wasn't for Biden:

4 new head-to-head national polls in last 48 hours push Trump's lead in RCP Avg to 2.4%. https://t.co/QjDgaG8iNI pic.twitter.com/3zvxwtUXl2
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) March 13, 2024

Additionally, Trump remains in the lead in all seven swing states, which has the Biden campaign focusing on states like Michigan and Wisconsin. When applied to Biden, the AP's use of the word "barnstorming" cracked us up:

Fresh off his defiant State of the Union address, President Joe Biden on Friday laced into former President Donald Trump — by name this time — as he and his senior aides began barnstorming the country to aggressively sell his vision for a second term to voters.
The president is trying to ride the post-speech momentum to Pennsylvania and Georgia for campaign events in two critical battleground states that he flipped in 2020 and is hoping to keeping in his column this November. He arrived at a private home in the pivotal Philadelphia suburbs along with his wife, Jill Biden, to hold what his campaign billed as a “kitchen table” conversation with brothers Jack and David Cunicelli, the owners of 320 Market Cafe, and their families ahead of remarks to supporters at the local middle school. He’ll move on to New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Michigan next week.

Carefully scripted (which Biden still manages to botch) events with limited audiences and an angry SOTU speech still don't seem to be doing the trick: