New poll: Trump's SOTU pivot on the economy didn't work
A poll conducted in the two days after Trump's State of the Union address reveals the public is still skeptical the president can deliver on affordability
Special post-SOTU poll release! This extra Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll includes new data on how voters perceived Trump’s State of the Union address — plus a few different question wording experiments testing the extent to which Americans hold contradictory beliefs on transgender rights, immigration, and government spending. I’ll have the write-up on that next week.
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If President Donald Trump was trying to convince the American people at his State of the Union address on Feb. 24, 2026, that he is focused on prices and affordability, he was unsuccessful, according to a new poll from Strength In Numbers.
According to our new poll, which interviewed just over 1,000 U.S. adults from Feb. 25 to 26, 2026, most Americans see the president as still focusing his attention on the wrong issues. Overall, 57% of Americans say Trump is “mostly focused on other things,” rather than “the issues that matter most to me” (30%).
According to an analysis of Mr Trump’s speech by Strength In Numbers, the president spent just 13% of his time Tuesday night talking about affordability, jobs, and health care — the top 3 issues voters say they care about today. In comparison, he spent 24% of his SOTU address on immigration, including deportations and mentions of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants, and 20% on foreign policy.
The consequences of this are reflected in the results of our poll question asking those who watched the State of the Union which issues they perceived Trump as focusing on the most. According to our poll, 21% of SOTU-watchers said the president spent the most time on immigration. In comparison, 14% said jobs, 10% said deportations, and 9% said prices. The second most-common answer was “something else” (the president spent an inordinate amount of time awarding medals and praising the U.S. mens olympic hockey team).
In total, 46% of adults said jobs and prices are the most important issues to them personally. But only 23% of people who watched Trump’s speech said he focused most on those two issues.
Trump’s SOTU was supposed to be a reset button for the White House as it scales up its 2026 midterms campaign. JD Vance previewed the speech as a focus on “bringing jobs back” and cutting energy prices.
Instead, Trump spent the bulk of his address on immigration enforcement and trade — two issues on which he is deeply underwater and where public interest is weakest.
The president had one night, and a captive media, to convince the public that he gets it — that he understands the cost of groceries, rent, child care, and health insurance is making life difficult for the average American, and that he is executing on a plan to do something about it. Voters want to know the president is focused on the issue, which they view as more important than anything else happening in American politics today. As I wrote on Wednesday, adults say they’d even support pausing all deportations of unauthorized immigrants to stabilize prices of agricultural goods and housing.
Our early polling suggests Trump’s SOTU pivot did not work.
Below is the topline and methodology for this poll. Some questions have been held for future release.
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The speech was just a MAGA pep rally - not an effort to win the middle. This week we should expect Trump's approval polls to increase slightly with defecting Republicans, but nobody else. And next week the "bump" will disappear.