As expected, both Gallup and CBS News conducted instant analysis surveys among debate watchers last night. Last night, Gallup called back respondents they had interviewed a few days ago (1/29-30) and interviewed 465 who said they watched the speech (the report should be free to non-subscribers for the next few days). CBS News used the Knowledge Networks internet panel to interview 734 speech watchers initially interviewed "in recent days." As in past years, supporters of the President were more likely to watch the speech than other Americans, and those who did watch overwhelmingly approved of what they heard. However, as noted yesterday, this pattern seldom translates into a "bump" in the President’s ratings in the nation as a whole.
The results are very similar to what both methodologies found in previous years. Both surveys showed speech watchers to be more Republican than the nation as a whole, although like last year the Gallup sample had a bigger partisan skew (43% Republican, 23% Democrat) than the CBS sample (36% Republican, 26% Democrat ). Last year the Republican edge was 52% to 25% on the Gallup sample and 39% to 30% on the CBS sample.
As they did last year, both "instant" surveys also showed a positive response to the speech, although the Gallup ratings were a bit lower than last year:
- 75% of the Gallup sample reported a "positive" reaction to the speech, with 48% "very positive." Last years response was 86% positive, with 60% very positive. The Gallup rating for this year’s speech audience was lower than any other Bush State of the Union speeches except 2004.
- 77% of the CBS debate viewers said they approved of "the proposals the President made in his speech." Last year 80% approved.
Of course, both surveys asked many more in-depth questions probing the reactions of speech watchers. See their reports for the details.
If you are just tuning in to MP after a few days, make sure you scroll down (or click) to read yesterday’s post reviewing the historical pattern: Again, positive reactions on SOTU instant polls are typical but rarely lead to any sort of "bump" in the President’s job approval rating.
UPDATE: See my subsequent posts on the way the networks characterized the results and what the Nielsen ratings had to say about the audience size.
