The state of the union is significantly stronger than it was when Joe Biden took office two years ago. But can he convince the public of that in his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday?
Biden has racked up an impressive list of accomplishments in the first half of his term, including an economic rebound, as underscored by yet another strong jobs report last week. He has been a steadying force on the world stage, helping lead the international response to Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. And while his ambitious agenda has often run up against the political realities of a polarized Washington, he’s still managed to sign a number of essential bills on infrastructure, gun safety, and several other issues that his predecessors could not.
Yet the president’s string of successes remain muted by a general sense of malaise: More than six in 10 Americans say they’re not feeling the impact of Biden’s accomplishments, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll from Monday. Nearly two-thirds of voters surveyed said the president has done “not very much” or “little or nothing” over the last two years. Moreover, a majority don’t believe he has made any progress on infrastructure or jobs, two of the issues where he has arguably made the most inroads. Predictably, views of Biden’s record fall along party lines, with nearly 80 percent of Democrats telling pollsters the president has accomplished a “great deal” or a “good amount,” compared with just seven percent of Republicans who say the same. But a different poll released by the Associated Press-NORC suggests even Democrats aren’t particularly eager for him to run again, with only 37 percent saying they believe Biden should seek a second term—down from more than 50 percent in the aftermath of the November midterms, which saw the party outperform expectations and beat back MAGA threats to democracy.
“I don’t know who is going to be on the ballot,” one voter told the AP. “But I would hope it would be someone better from his party.”
In Tuesday’s State of the Union address—his first before a divided Congress, led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy—Biden will be looking to reverse those headwinds. Not only will he use it as an opportunity to hammer extreme Republicans, who are sure to put the brakes on his legislative agenda the next two years and to mire him in relentless congressional investigations. He’s also expected to make a strong case for himself and his party by laying out his administration’s accomplishments to the American people. “These things don’t sell themselves,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told NBC News’ Chuck Todd on Meet the Press Sunday. “It’s one of the reasons I’m really looking forward to that State of the Union address. I will say that there have been so many accomplishments under this administration. It can be difficult to list them in a distilled way.”
Part of the trouble, as Buttigieg noted, is that those successes have been “happening simultaneously with some of the toughest circumstances ever,” like the war in Ukraine or record inflation. Another issue may be press coverage, which has at times failed to engage with the substance of the administration’s policies as vigorously as it’s covered the partisan back-and-forth over them. Not to mention, Biden himself has not been immune to unforced errors, as evidenced by his handling of his classified documents scandal. None of this may be pushing Americans toward the GOP. (Polling suggests that voters don’t want Donald Trump on the ballot in 2024, either, and the Washington Post-ABC News survey indicated Americans have even less confidence in Speaker McCarthy than they do in Biden.) But a prevailing sense that both parties are equally incompetent and crooked can foster the cynical conditions in which Republicans thrive.
The key question hanging over Tuesday’s address, then, is the degree to which Biden can break through all that, particularly as he prepares to launch his second campaign as soon as next month. “We’ve got a lot more to do,” Biden said in a speech to Democratic National Committee members Friday, as they chanted “four more years.” “I intend to get it done.”
Eric Lutz
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