Mellman: My apologies — and a rise in Biden’s approval rating

Rather like his son, my father, of blessed memory, enjoyed re-telling the same jokes over and over, pretending his audience had never heard them. 

One of his favorites came when he was caught making an error. “Until now,” he’d say, “I only made one mistake in my life. That was one time I thought I was wrong.”

By that (silly) standard, last week was tough for me. I made at least two and half mistakes in that brief period. 

One and a half were related to last week’s column for which I apologize to you, my readers. 

Fortunately, my mistakes do not in any way undercut the core arguments I made: State of the Union speeches rarely have a meaningful impact on presidents’ approval ratings, and questions asking whether respondents had a positive or negative reaction to the speech are uncorrelated with anything of import. 

However, I misreported and mischaracterized responses to the latter questions.  

I wrote, “The two highest scores on these questions were recorded by President Biden in 2021 and President Bush in 2001.” Not true.

In fact, the two highest scores on this question were for President Bush in 2002 and President Obama in 2009. 

I also wrote that Biden’s score on this question was “better than Trump ever got, and better than all but the first of President Obama’s addresses.” 

Also, not true.  

I cited these numbers in service of my contention that they are uncorrelated with anything significant, including changes in presidential approval — and that is true. 

For example, President Bush’s actual record high positive reaction in 2002 was accompanied by a 2-point decline in his approval rating.  

Which brings us to the half mistake. Only half because I don’t write the column’s headlines. My editor slapped this atop my piece, “The SOTU fails to move Biden’s numbers. That’s no surprise.” 

I would never have said that because we didn’t yet have the relevant approval data from Gallup (the approval data I used throughout the column for consistency’s sake). 

Partially my fault though because I quoted a journalist saying Biden’s “numbers” hadn’t moved. I didn’t elaborate because it wasn’t central.

However, the data is now in: President Biden’s approval rating actually increased by 2 points in the wake of this SOTU, better than the average increase of zero.  

538, which employs a wider range of polls and a somewhat different methodology, recorded an even greater, nearly 3-point increase, in Biden’s approval rating after the speech.  

Again, an increase in approval despite a lower than average positive evaluation. Uncorrelated. But a clear improvement in President Biden’s approval rating.

My final mistake was unrelated to the column but occurred during a podcast with Politico’s Ryan Lizza. 

Asked about Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) Israel speech in which he called for new elections in the country, I noted the leader had an impeccable pro-Israel record and cares deeply about that country and its people. I said that he offered his criticism from a position of love not animus —and that the speech was much more balanced than the coverage it received.  

While I’ve publicly advocated a two-state solution since the 1970s and have spent a decade actively working to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, I harbor some serious concerns about aspects of the speech. 

I told Lizza that one of those concerns was that Schumer put Hamas and Netanyahu on the same level as obstacles to peace.  

On this point I was wrong.  

The leader did call out four obstacles to peace, one of which was Hamas and one of which was the prime minister, but Schumer explicitly said, “These obstacles are not the same in their culpability for the present state of affairs.” 

I apologize to Leader Schumer for misrepresenting that element of his speech. 

To be human is to make mistakes. I’ve made my share and seek forgiveness for all of them. Admitting them is the first step. 

Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has helped elect 30 U.S. senators, 12 governors and dozens of House members. Mellman served as pollster to Senate Democratic leaders for over 20 years, as president of the American Association of Political Consultants, a member of the Association’s Hall of Fame, and is president of Democratic Majority for Israel.