By Will Demartinis
President Joe Biden delivered his first state of the Union Address during his tenure as President. Delivered in the midst of a Ukrainian war, a worse landscape for Democrats control of congress come 2022, and Joe Biden’s own policy failures, this speech could’ve been the turning tide to rebound Joe Biden and the Democrats political hopes. Did the speech do that, or did it just divide Americans further? That’s what we’ll look at today.
Joe Biden opened his speech with a section on the Ukrainian crisis, which has gripped headlines across the world for days. On Thursday, February 24th, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, and the rest is history. Joe Biden used this portion of the speech to announce new bans on Russian flights, the U.S’s unwavering commitment to Ukraine & NATO, and that the U.S was the bastion of the free & Democratic world. A solid opening portion to his speech and a addressing of a crippling crisis, the opening segment left many Americans pleased.
In fact, over 76% of Americans who watched Joe Biden’s speech approved of the speech. (However, take these numbers with a grain of salt. Who’s more likely to watch the state of the Union of Democratic President Joe Biden?) Back to topic however, Joe Biden’s 2nd half of the speech dealt with Domestic issues. His speech first touted the creation of new Factory Jobs in the Rust belt, an initiative that is both broadly popular and useful to the American Economy. However, the rest covered his policie, mostly found in Joe Bidens whittling down and stalled Build Back Better bill. Since its decoupling from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, Joe Manchin has had his world. And unfortunately for Democrats, Joe Manchin isn’t budging on the Bill, nor its 1 trillion + Price Tag. Not only that, but Joe Biden hasn’t done much to get his Bills passed. Were not talking FDR or LBJ tactics here, Joe Biden hasn’t intervened at all to get Manchin or other Democratic holdouts to support his bill. So while talking about policies is theoretically worth it, all talk and no action doesn’t help juice the approval ratings come November 2022, when control of Congress is at stake.
And considering this speech comes at a moment of rocketing Gas prices, Inflation, and souring approvals & polls for Democrats, Joe Biden’s speech didn’t do much to change the tides. (According to 538) Republicans hold a +2.5 point lead in the generic congressional ballot, which is a statistic to measure how a competitive race would unfold (In this case, a Republican would win it by 2.5 percentage points). Democrats are going to have to reverse that, and fast, to have any chance of retaining their slim house majority in November 2022. Plus, High gas prices + Inflation don’t exactly make the best talking points, nor the easiest thing to define against Republican attacks.
So while Americans approved of Joe Biden’s first state of the Union address, it will likely change very little in the tides of American politics. Those who approved of Joe Biden before the speech will still approve of him, and those who didn’t, won’t.
