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

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.