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By Giulia Carbonaro
Senior Reporter
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Tuesday’s State of the Union address drew the smallest audience ever recorded when President Donald Trump has been in the White House—and smaller than any president before him in the past 30 years, with the exception of Joe Biden.
While the final figures will only be available on Thursday afternoon, roughly 28 million viewers across eight major news networks tuned in to Trump’s speech, according to preliminary data from Nielsen.
Why It Matters
The shrinking of the State of the Union address’ audience comes as the latest polls show plunging support for Trump among voters.
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An Ipsos/*Washington Post/*ABC poll released on Sunday showed that 60 percent of voters disapproved of the president. A CNN/SSRS survey run between February 17 and 20 showed an even more negative net approval rating of -27.
A majority of U.S. voters are disappointed with the way the president is handling the economy, immigration, trade and tariffs, and the cost of living, according to these polls. Crucially, recent polls have also shown that Trump’s approval rating has sunk among two key voter groups—independents and working-class voters.
What To Know About Tuesday’s Figures
Trump’s State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday carried on for around 107 minutes, marking the longest such speech on record.
Roughly 27.8 million viewers across the seven most watched broadcast and cable outlets—ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, the Fox broadcast network, MS Now and NBC—watched it, according to Nielsen preliminary data. Compared with Trump’s address to Congress last year, viewership was down by about 12 percent from 31.45 million viewers.
Most of these viewers, 9.1 million, watched the address on Fox News; 5.1 million watched it on ABC; 3.6 million on NBC; 3.3 million on CBS; 2.1 million on the Fox broadcast network; 2.4 million on MS Now; and 2.2 million on CNN.
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Not only was the address scarcely followed; it was also poorly received, according to a CNN survey which found that Tuesday’s State of the Union address was the least popular in a century.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle told Newsweek in an emailed statement: “The same CNN polling showed 64 percent of speech-watchers felt the country is headed in the right direction. President Trump is delivering on his popular and common-sense America First mandate that nearly 80 million Americans elected him to do.”
How Do These Compare To Previous Presidents’ Viewership Figures
Viewership for Tuesday’s State of the Union address is the lowest Trump he has recorded since first being elected to office in 2016. In 2017, his address to Congress was watched by nearly 48 million Americans, according to Nielsen. These figures dwindled slightly through the years, falling to 45.6 million in 2018, 46.8 million in 2019, and 37.2 million in 2020.
Despite the viewership’s plunge on Tuesday, more Americans still tuned in to watch the president’s address this week than they did for Biden’s first speech to Congress in 2021, when 26.9 million people watched it across 16 channels, according to Nielsen.
But Biden’s viewership for his State of the Union address in 2022 beat Tuesday's, with 38.2 million Americans tuning in to watch the coverage. In 2023, viewership had plunged to 27.3 million, according to Nielsen, while in 2024 an estimated 32.2 million people watched the former president’s final State of the Union address.
It is normal for viewership for the State of the Union address to peak during a president’s first year at the White House and shrink as time goes by.
This is what happened to former President Barack Obama, whose first speech to Congress in 2009 was followed by 52.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen, but whose last in 2016 saw only 31.3 million Americans tuning in.
These figures, however, were still higher than those reported by Trump on Tuesday.
The same can be said for Bill Clinton, whose State of the Union addresses also drew smaller audiences through the years of his presidency, going from 45.8 million in 1994 to 31.4 million in 2000.
The only exceptions to this rule are George W. Bush, who in 2002 drew a bigger audience than the year before for its post-9/11 State of the Union address (from 39.8 million to 51.7 million), and Biden in 2022.
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