The State Of The Union Provides Joe Biden A Chance To Solve His Biggest Problems

Voters still don’t know what the president has done in office. Here’s a chance to fix it.

Goodbye, Nikki. See you later, Dean. It’s down to President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, starting with Thursday night’s State of the Union address — the biggest chance Biden will get to impress voters before the Democratic National Convention in August.

Biden begins the heart of his re-election campaign trailing Trump in public polling by generally steady but not insurmountable margins. He has a tepid approval rating and a majority of voters questioning whether he is simply too old to be president. He’ll have other advantages, particularly financial. His campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and super PACs backing him have already committed more than $700 million to defeating Trump.

A good portion of the cash will go to the same cause. Biden is likely to commit a significant amount of time during the State of the Union to reminding voters — or perhaps convincing them — of what he’s actually done during his time in office, something his campaign and the White House have largely failed to do so far. It may be the central challenge facing Biden’s re-election campaign over the next eight months.

“The Biden administration has a really hard time breaking through, and it’s not for a lack of effort or trying,” said Danielle Deiseroth, the executive director of Data For Progress. “They’re sending the cabinet, they’re sending the president, out into the world, and folks are just not getting it.”

On Wednesday, Data For Progress released polling showing just how few voters give Biden credit for things he has unambiguously accomplished and which the voters themselves unambiguously support. While Biden and his administration have repeatedly discussed the $550 billion in additional infrastructure funding Congress passed under Biden’s watch in 2021, it has not reached voters. Only 41% of voters said Biden increased funding for infrastructure, while 42% said he had not.