Many speeches serve as a mere formality as governors reiterate previously-stated goals. But in some cases, governors use the opportunity to announce major policy initiatives.
Governing compiled transcripts of each State of the State address delivered this year. In all, 43 governors spoke in January and February.
Several common themes emerged among the speeches. Not surprisingly, jobs and education appear to be top issues for most states.
Here's a word cloud of all the speeches:
After combining all the speeches and excluding common words, a few of the most frequently-used words (full and partial matches) were:
- Tax: 582 mentions
- Jobs: 563 mentions
- Business: 516 mentions
- School: 515 mentions
- Economy/Economic: 464 mentions
- Education: 460 mentions
- Child/Children: 446 mentions
- Government: 411 mentions
- Budget: 376 mentions
- Student: 307 mentions
- Teacher: 302 mentions
- Health: 293 mentions
View the full text and a word cloud for each speech from the table below:
| State | Governor | Date | Speech |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | Gov. Robert Bentley | 2/7/2012 | Read speech |
| Alaska | Gov. Sean Parnell | 1/18/2012 | Read speech |
| Arizona | Gov. Jan Brewer | 1/9/2012 | Read speech |
| Arkansas | Gov. Mike Beebe | No Speech | |
| California | Gov. Jerry Brown | 1/18/2012 | Read speech |
| Colorado | Gov. John Hickenlooper | 1/12/2012 | Read speech |
| Connecticut | Gov. Dan Malloy | 2/8/2012 | Read speech |
| Delaware | Gov. Jack Markell | 1/19/2012 | Read speech |
| Florida | Gov. Rick Scott | 1/10/2012 | Read speech |
| Georgia | Gov. Nathan Deal | 1/10/2012 | Read speech |
| Hawaii | Gov. Neil Abercrombie | 1/23/2012 | Read speech |
| Idaho | Gov. Butch Otter | 1/9/2012 | Read speech |
| Illinois | Gov. Pat Quinn | 2/1/2012 | Read speech |
| Indiana | Gov. Mitch Daniels | 1/10/2012 | Read speech |
| Iowa | Gov. Terry Branstad | 1/10/2012 | Read speech |
| Kansas | Gov. Sam Brownback | 1/11/2012 | Read speech |
| Kentucky | Gov. Steve Beshear | 1/4/2012 | Read speech |
| Louisiana | Gov. Bobby Jindal | No speech | |
| Maine | Gov. Paul LePage | 1/24/2012 | Read speech |
| Maryland | Gov. Martin O’Malley | 2/1/2012 | Read speech |
| Massachusetts | Gov. Deval Patrick | 1/23/2012 | Read speech |
| Michigan | Gov. Rick Snyder | 1/18/2012 | Read speech |
| Minnesota | Gov. Mark Dayton | 2/15/2012 | Read speech |
| Mississippi | Gov. Phil Bryant | 1/24/2012 | Read speech |
| Missouri | Gov. Jay Nixon | 1/17/2012 | Read speech |
| Montana | Gov. Brian Schweitzer | No Speech | |
| Nebraska | Gov. Dave Heineman | 1/12/2012 | Read speech |
| Nevada | Gov. Brian Sandoval | No Speech | |
| New Hampshire | Gov. John Lynch | 1/31/2012 | Read speech |
| New Jersey | Gov. Chris Christie | 1/17/2012 | Read speech |
| New Mexico | Gov. Susana Martinez | 1/17/2012 | Read speech |
| New York | Gov. Andrew Cuomo | 1/4/2012 | Read speech |
| North Carolina | Gov. Beverly Perdue | No Speech | |
| North Dakota | Gov. Jack Dalrymple | No Speech | |
| Ohio | Gov. John Kasich | 2/7/2012 | Read speech |
| Oklahoma | Gov. Mary Fallin | 2/6/2012 | Read speech |
| Oregon | Gov. John Kitzhaber | 1/13/2012 | Read speech |
| Pennsylvania | Gov. Tom Corbett | 2/7/2012 | Read speech |
| Rhode Island | Gov. Lincoln Chafee | 1/31/2012 | Read speech |
| South Carolina | Gov. Nikki Haley | 1/18/2012 | Read speech |
| South Dakota | Gov. Dennis Daugaard | 1/10/2012 | Read speech |
| Tennessee | Gov. Bill Haslam | 1/30/2012 | Read speech |
| Texas | Gov. Rick Perry | No Speech | |
| Utah | Gov. Gary Herbert | 1/25/2012 | Read speech |
| Vermont | Gov. Peter Shumlin | 1/5/2012 | Read speech |
| Virginia | Gov. Bob McDonnell | 1/11/2012 | Read speech |
| Washington | Gov. Christine Gregoire | 1/10/2012 | Read speech |
| West Virginia | Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin | 1/11/2012 | Read speech |
| Wisconsin | Gov. Scott Walker | 1/25/2012 | Read speech |
| Wyoming | Gov. Matt Mead | 2/13/2011 | Read speech |
