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Digging Into The Insta-Polls: Did The SOTU Bring Independents Back To Obama?

Evan McMorris-Santoro | January 28, 2010, 12:30PM

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President Barack Obama

State Of The Union

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President Obama's State Of The Union address last night helped Obama reconnect with the angry Independent voters he's lost during his first year in office. That's one takeaway from a pair of instant polls published by major TV outlets last night. Though the quick overnight polls are rarely given the credibility of other opinion polling, the large jumps in positive impressions of Obama's leadership from respondents last at least point to a potential turnaround for the White House when it comes to communication.

Polls from CBS and CNN overnight showed Democrats were more likely to watch the speech than either Independents or Republicans. That's not rare, according to pollsters -- supporters of the president in power usually tune in the speech more than opponents. But in both polls, Independents represented more than a third of viewership -- a number in keeping with the electorate as a whole, according to CBS. The high marks viewers gave the speech suggest Obama connected with some of the Independents, a critical constituency Democrats have lost in the most recent elections.

On the economy, which the White House said before hand was the central focus of the speech, viewers polled afterward were on board with Obama's policy proposals. In the CBS poll, 71% of respondents said Obama's economic plans will help ordinary Americans, up 16% percent from before the address. The CNN poll had similar results.

The policy plans in the speech also connected with viewers. The CBS poll found 70% of speech viewers said Obama shares their priorities. That's up from 57% in pre-speech polling. In the CNN poll, more than half of respondents said Obama "has the right priorites," while 44% said he "hasn't paid attention to the most important problems." Those numbers were flipped in pre-speech polling.

Of course, it's doubtful the speech will have a similar effect on the electorate as a whole as it did on those who tuned in last night. But independents have increasingly become a hostile audience for Democrats, and the reaction to Obama's return to campaign-style rhetoric in the speech suggests he may have found a way to reconnect with him. Most polling shows Obama still has high personal approval ratings from the public -- it's his ability to do the job where voters have started to have doubts. Last night's insta-polling shows those concerns still exist -- the number of people who thought Obama would be able to get his legislative agenda accomplished was much smaller than the number who approved of the agenda itself -- but they also show that people are still ready to let a president they like lead them.

Late Update: CBS emailed me their party breakdowns from last night's polls. The Obama boost among Independents appeared to bear out, keeping in mind that the Independents who chose to watch the speech are probably not the hardest of the hardcore anti-Obama set. Still, according to CBS' figures, the Independents who did tune in were down on Obama's handling of the economy and health care by significant margins. After watching Obama explain his plans in the speech, a big majority approved of his health care and economic proposals. The numbers shifted for other viewers, too, as we reported. But the results are even more evidence that Obama may have reconnected with Independents last night.