March 04, 2022 10:10 AM UTC

Biden Gets Big Bounce From Strong SOTU

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• by: Colorado Pols

A new poll from NPR released this morning could mark a turning point for President Joe Biden, who took a hit in popularity in his first year in office while confronting the literal globe full of challenges left by his predecessor–after an unexpectedly powerful State of the Union address on Tuesday that thrilled beleaguered Democrats, showcased Republican embarrassments like Rep. Lauren “Q*Bert” Boebert, and confounded Biden’s ageist detractors for at least a moment or two:

After what’s been a bleak several months politically for President Biden, a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey finds he is seeing a significant boost in his approval ratings across the board following his State of the Union address and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“This is an unusual bounce,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the poll. “It gets him back to where he was pre-Afghanistan.” [Pols emphasis]

Here’s a look at some of the numbers:

Overall approval rating jumped to 47%, up 8 points from the NPR poll last month. Presidents don’t generally see much, if any bounce, out of a State of the Union address. Since 1978, there had only been six times when a president saw an approval rating improve 4 points or more following State of the Union addresses, according to the pollsters. Three of those bounces were for former President Bill Clinton;
Ukraine handling is up 18 points to 52%;
Coronavirus pandemic handling is now 55%, up 8 points; and
Economic handling up 8 points to 45%.

Republicans have worked to establish a narrative about Biden’s supposed poor health and senescence for years before he became President, and on plenty of occasions Biden’s Democratic opponents were either happy to oblige or at least unwilling to challenge the right’s opportunistic and frequently misleading swipes. Biden’s strong performance in the State of the Union address this week blew a huge hole in the GOP-cultivated myth that he is not up to the job, and that’s clearly reflected in these dramatically improved numbers.

Don’t call it a comeback until it’s corroborated, and there’s room to grow, but it’s no “dead cat bounce.”

Joe Biden is very much in the game, and the fate of Democrats in the 2022 midterms is not yet sealed.