Only about a third of Americans are willing to cop to the fact that they are not going to watch the State of the Union address tonight.
In the latest survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Jan. 20-23 among 1,001 adults, 61% say they plan to watch the State of the Union address, either on television (54 percent) or the internet (7 percent). About a third (35 percent) say they don't think they will watch the State of the Union, Obama's first since Republicans took control of the House in the 2010 elections.
Pew also did a bunch of polling about whether people think this year's speech is particularly important relative to past years:
Nearly three-in-ten (28 percent) say this year's speech is more important than addresses in past years, while 53 percent say it is about as important and 11% say it is less important. The number saying this speech is more important is down from just before Obama's 2010 speech (39 percent more important).
But Pew doesn't seem to have asked why people feel compelled to lie to pollsters about their intentions to watch the SotU. Last year, 48 million viewers saw the speech, clocking in at about 20 percent of the U.S. adult population. That's nothing to be ashamed of. We should be happy that 80 percent of American adults found something better to do at 9 p.m. on a weekday than listen to a politician talk.
