What Went Down At Biden’s State Of The Union And Texas’s Primary Election

In Texas’s 28th District, it remains to be seen if Rep. Henry Cuellar can win renomination in the Democratic primary. He trails challenger Jessica Cisneros by about 3 points, 46 percent to 49 percent, with more than half the vote in per the New York Times. But neither candidate has a majority because Tannya Benavides has 5 percent, which could force a runoff between the two leading candidates in May.

Biden delivered this State of the Union as an unpopular president. Only Trump had a lower approval rating at this point in his first term. This was obviously a bid to reset his standing with the American people and I think there are two areas where there’s reason to think he could be successful. 1) The most visually obvious turn of the page was on COVID-19. The hall was full and Democrats were maskless. Biden basically acknowledged that while future variants may come, Americans are done with the vast majority of restrictions. That is a pretty popular position. 2) He spent the opening of his speech addressing the crisis in Ukraine, which is a new dynamic and could set him up to be seen in a position of strength as he confronts Putin. That’s yet to be apparent in the polls, though. On just about everything else, Biden is likely stuck. That applies to inflation, large-scale social spending priorities, culture wars — the list goes on. That may sound like a pessimistic reading for Biden. It probably is. But COVID-19 and the threat of war are a big deal, so perhaps there’s some room for perceptions to change.

My one contribution to the State of the Union responses is to note that New Jersey Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer trashed Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib for delivering the Working Families Party response, saying it was “like keying your own car and slashing your own tires,” and yet is headlining the No Labels response to Biden’s address tonight with Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick.