State Of The Union Requests: How Many Get Done?

Presidents ask Congress for a lot of stuff in State of the Union addresses. Since 1965, only around 40 percent of those requests have been successful to some degree, according to one study. President Obama’s record on this count is worse than average.

Fully Successful
Partially Successful

Notes

The study’s authors evaluated presidential requests starting with Lyndon Baines Johnson’s 1965 address, the first aired in prime time. The State of the Union from 1973, when Nixon presented his address as a series of written messages to Congress, is not included.