Nielson reports on the number of viewers for the SOTU address
I wondered the other day about how many people watched the SOTU address, and here’s the figure: 45.6 million.
To put that into perspective, see this. That number is similar to Obama’s second SOTU speech and also very similar to Trump’s first (Obama’s first was somewhat higher, but not a ton higher). Viewership in general has come down from the days of Clinton and Bush—even for Obama. But there’s a simple explanation, which is that Nielson only reports on TV-watching and does not include online watching. These days, that’s a pretty big omission.
That’s why Trump’s statement that it was the most viewed in history is impossible to fact-check.
More importantly, it means that an awful lot of people saw the Democrats sitting on their hands—not just at times when a viewer might expect them to, but at times when Congressional Democrats should have been applauding.
When I tried to Google “who watched the SOTU address”—that is, what was the political makeup of the viewers—I got a ton of articles falsely claiming that Trump falsely claimed to have the largest viewership in history. As I already explained, Trump’s claim was seemingly baseless but impossible to prove or disprove unless a person has access to a secret source of reliable information about online viewers.
I wanted to know the political makeup of the viewers, because I had a hunch that they were mostly Trump-supporters or Trump-neutral. It’s the Trump-neutral ones I’m interested in. They’re the ones who might have been both surprised and turned off by the Democrats’ antics.
All I’ve been able to find so far is the breakdown of those who answered a CBS poll in which 75% of respondents had a favorable view of the speech:
In the latest CBS national poll released earlier this month, 24 percent of Americans identified themselves as Republicans. Among those who watched tonight’s address, that percentage was 42 percent, bolstering the overall approval of the address.
So in addition to these 42% who were Republicans, 25% of the poll respondents were Democrats and 33% Independents. That 75% positive response to the speech was much higher than the percentage of Republicans. Also, 81% of respondents said Trump was trying to unite the country in the speech. To me, that indicates that Democratic operatives are barking up the wrong tree by calling it “divisive.” Remember that 32% of those polled called themselves “Trump opponents,” so some of them must have approved of not only parts of the speech but the speech as a whole, as well as Trump’s uniter-not-divider motives.
The poll wasn’t one of those online polls in which just anybody could respond (I had originally completely discounted it because I had thought it was). Here’s the research method used:
This CBS News 2018 survey is based on 1,178 interviews conducted on the internet of U.S. residents who watched the State of the Union Address. Panelists were previously interviewed on January 29-30, 2018 to indicate whether they planned to watch the address, and if they were willing to be re-interviewed after the address.
The detailed results can be found at the link.
Polls are polls, of course. I take them all with a grain of salt. But this one’s certainly interesting.
“Plural of anecdotes is not data” disclaimer: I watched the SOTU on my cellphone.
Even on the tiny screen the Democrats looked awful.
My initial impressions: It was quite good for Trump. It was thin on policy and was more backward looking than forward. (I guess a SOTU should be a backward assessment, but is usually a forward promising campaign pitch.)
And I was amused and a bit confused by the one instance of Dem booing. It was Trump’s claim that a single legal immigrant can bring a unlimited number of relatives into the US under chain migration. Was it the dishonesty or the honesty that riled them? How many chain migrants can be pulled in?
The numbers Neo reports are really astonishing. 32% self-proclaim as Trump opponents, but 75% had a positive view of the SOTU? Wow! I saw the unscientific internet poll on MSN on the morning after. I think it was 48% very positive and some 30 to 35% somewhat positive.
I do not watch broadcast TV, there are a few shows I record and about once a month I watch them with fast forward to avoid the commercials. My wife watches HGTV and a few other shows while she knits and the commercials don’t seem to bother her too much. I doubt if I have seen more than ten commercials, at least with the sound on for the past eight years.
We watched Trump on an online link and were impressed that he did a good job, great timing, great delivery, and he avoided ad-lib for the most part, stuck to the script which was well written. I am a grumpy old man and I would think a whole lot of grumpy old people watch our President Trump, yes he is my president, on their computers.
Re: True / False statements.
This may cut both ways. The Press credits Trump with making true statements in regards to the employment numbers.
But there are a lot of unemployed people not included in the figures Trump cites. It all depends on how one defines employment and even then full data is rarely available. Economists debate real employment rates all the time.
Trump himself has argued this, stating during the campaign that the real unemployment rate was 42% as opposed to the 4.9% that the Government was using.
Given the similar uncertainty, is the press also falsely claiming that Trump told the truth?
My local paper (should be called the Democrat Propagandist instead of the Denver Post) had a rundown of other newspapers’ reactions (they were all of Lib-Prog persuasion, of course):
NYT: “A hollow charade”
WashPost: “He clapped for himself way too often”
Philadelphia Daily News (-I laughed out loud-): “A teleprompter just rolled off the best speech of Donald Trump’s Presidency {…}”
(Anybody recall HOW IMPRESSED the MFMSM was with President O’Dreamy’s prowess at reading teleprompters??)
Or to semi-reverse-quote Sally Field’s Oscar speech: “They hate him. They really, really hate him.”
I’m told that the ACLU claimed that the SOTU was divisive because it used the word “American” too many times.
/sigh
The speech was a forthright expression of Americanism, which is ideologically incompatible with Multiculturalism and Globalism. Therefore, it is by definition “divisive” in the eyes of those who are committed to the latter ideologies. You just have to understand that those words don’t mean to them what they mean to you and me.
In the same way, if you are in Deep Blue country, “middle class” is a euphemism for government employee. Therefore, cutting taxes contributes to “crushing the middle class.”
Humpty-Dumptyism on steroids.
To continue the same logic, pro-Americanism = NOT Multiculturalism = Racism. So what sounds like an accusation is merely the expression of a tautology. It is also a way of begging the question.
NOT Supporting the political demands of the multi-cilti Left = Defending White Supremacy.
NOT Globalist = Isolationist.
Even theoretically well-educated people believe this stuff, presumably because they have an incentive to do so.
The best number in that analysis is the 33% independents, because they are the ones who will decide the next election. Red and blue votes will not swing by much, but if the independents vote GOP, Trump will be re-elected. And having 33% of the viewers self-identify as independents, and having them see the Democrats sitting on their hands, should be good for the next election.