Angela Lang needs to hear and see more but she called President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address a big help to her work: getting Black voters energized and to the polls.
“It was a strong and firm speech,” said Lang, a community activist in Milwaukee. “Now, he needs to back it up and keep the same energy into the November election.”
Priscilla Forsyth, on the other hand, said the president was “very robotic and yelling at us.” Forsyth, an Iowa attorney who caucused for Nikki Haley, ended her take on Biden’s prime-time appeal with this: “This speech just sealed the deal. I am back on the Trump Train.”
Lang and Forsyth are among the voters participating in a CNN project designed to track the 2024 campaign through the eyes and experiences of Americans who live in battleground states or are members of key voting blocs.
Over a dozen of those voters, across seven states, offered their thoughts as the president spoke Thursday night and in emails and texts after.
Their reactions overwhelmingly followed their partisan loyalties. Democrats were quick to praise Biden’s policies, his many critiques of presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump and the energy and vigor with which he delivered the speech. “The best speech of his presidency,” said Darrell Ann Murphy, a lifelong Democrat and a retiree from Easton, Pennsylvania.
The strong Republicans in our group, however, were unanimous in calling the speech too partisan and said it reinforced their view that a second Trump term would be preferable to giving Biden four more years. “I know Trump loves this country and its people and would be better for us,” said Mickey Brown, an 80-year-old retiree from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
The biggest takeaway came from the reviews of voters like…
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