President Biden faces pivotal 2024 State of the Union, chance to reset race against Trump:-WHITE HOUSE… Thursday is a big day for President Joe Biden because he has to give the State of the Union address. He needs to silence doubters about his ability to keep serving, reassure angry Americans that the economy is strong, and raise the stakes of a possible rematch with Donald Trump.
President Biden faces pivotal 2024 State of the Union, chance to reset race against Trump
It couldn’t be a more important time for Biden, who is facing problems at home and abroad, to give what could be his last State of the Union speech.
Pro-Palestinian protesters often yell at Biden as he tries to figure out the U.S.’s role in the Israel-Hamas war without making his leftist base even more angry. Concerns have been raised about his age and his ability to do his job for another four years. Even though the stock market is doing great and unemployment is at an all-time low, Biden isn’t taking credit for the economy getting better. His approval rate has been in the low 40s for two years and has been getting even lower in the last few weeks.
Most people still don’t get Biden’s main message for reelection, which is that the “battle for the soul of America” isn’t over. This makes Democrats nervous. Most polls across the country and in key states that will decide the race show that Trump is ahead of Biden.
“Right now he’s behind, so he needs to start making up stories about the upcoming election.” A political scientist at the University of Chicago named William Howell said, “This is a chance to fight back.”
Speech to set tone for general election against Trump
Because of what happened on Super Tuesday and Nikki Haley’s decision to drop out of the Republican primary, a rematch between Biden and Trump in November is almost certain. This week is therefore the unofficial start of the general election.
Biden will be speaking to his biggest TV audience until the party conference in August. At the State of the Union, he has a great chance to set the tone for the next eight months of the campaign by making contrasts with Trump that voters haven’t yet fully understood.
Biden spent the long weekend at Camp David getting ready for his State of the Union speech. It will be the first one given by a vice president while House Republican Speaker Mike Johnson is in charge of a joint session of Congress. Biden worked on the speech with Anita Dunn, Steve Ricchetti, Bruce Reed (deputy chief of staff), and Vinay Reddy (his ghostwriter).
The book Biden took to Camp David last Friday, “Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict,” written by William Ury and published last month, seemed to fit with the tests he faces. The book is described as a collection of “time-tested practices that will help readers unlock their power to constructively engage and transform conflict.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Biden “will lay out a plan for building on the progress we’ve made over the last three years.”
“The president has always been an optimistic person, as you all know, and even in the face of challenges that we have in front of us, he will share why he is hopeful about this country’s future,” said Jean-Pierre.
The White House says that it’s not a surprise that Biden will talk a lot about saving American democracy and restoring women’s reproductive rights. Biden said that Trump’s three Supreme Court choices overturned Roe v. Wade, which said that women have the constitutional right to have an abortion. He also said that Trump, who tried to overturn the 2020 election, is still a threat to democracy.
Biden will have a chance to ask Congress again to pass joint border legislation. Republicans in Congress killed this bill at Trump’s request. Biden asked Trump to “join me” in pushing for the bill last week while he was in Texas at the U.S.-Mexico border. The bill includes some of the strongest border security measures in a generation.
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Biden looks to unite a frayed Democratic coalition
Biden is likely to talk about how many jobs he created and how bold his record is: “accomplishing more in three years than most presidents have in two terms,” the White House has started to say.
The White House said Biden will talk about the need to “protect” his plans for infrastructure, dropping the cost of prescription drugs, and making things in the United States. He will also put himself on the side of the middle class by focusing on efforts to get rid of so-called “junk fees,” lower health care costs, and make businesses “pay their fair share” of taxes.
Governor of Virginia Barbara Perry called it “a huge moment”—even bigger than a normal State of the Union address. Perry is in charge of presidential studies at the Miller Centre at the University of Virginia. “This is kind of the start of the real campaign.” Everyone is looking at him, and he’s on national TV, so he needs to really knock it out of the park.
To win in November, Biden needs to bring together a Democratic coalition that is falling apart. Polls show that key groups like Black, Latino, and young voters are losing support.
A study released Saturday by the New York Times and Siena College showed that Trump was ahead of Biden 48% to 43% among registered voters. This showed how hard it is for Biden’s base: In 2020, 97% of people who voted for Trump said they would vote for him again in 2024. But only 83% of people who voted for Biden in 2020 say they will vote for Biden this autumn.
Perry said that Biden shouldn’t be afraid to talk to Trump directly at the State of the Union, even though it’s not a campaign event.
“What does he have to lose?” Perry said, “He’s already lost the votes of people who are set on voting for Donald Trump.” “He needs to enthuse those in his party who are clearly unenthusiastic about him to some degree and are concerned about his age.”
Silencing concerns about age
In spite of all the policy talk in the speech, Biden’s most important job is to show people who are wary of his age that he can do the job for another four years.
There were more worries about Biden’s advanced age last month when Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Hur wrote a report about how the 81-year-old president handled classified papers and called him “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
“Most important will be him,” said Julian Zelizer, a history professor at Princeton University, of Biden’s speech. He said this because voters are worried about Biden’s age and performance, and Democrats are worried about Biden’s ability to “withstand the Trump onslaught” the campaign.
“The State of the Union is his best opportunity to just show by speaking and show through his presence that he can handle this,” he said. “If there’s a kind of doubt about that that comes out in the speech, it will clearly be a problem.”
In a memo sent the day after Super Tuesday, the Biden campaign played down national polls that showed Trump losing. They said the polls “confirm what we already know to be true: this will be a very close general election contest.”
Jen O’Malley Dillon, campaign chair, and Julie Chañvez Rodrúguez, campaign manager, wrote the memo. It also said that “upwards of 10% of voters” are still undecided, which is a bigger share of the electorate than the current polling gap between Trump and Biden.They said that these voters strongly back Biden’s policies and that Biden’s team plans to “aggressively engage” them.
After the State of the Union, Biden plans to go on a travel spree to the Philadelphia area on Friday and the Atlanta area on Saturday. These trips will take him to Pennsylvania and Georgia, two states that could decide the election.
Cabinet members and other top officials are also being sent all over the country by the Biden administration to spread the word.
For a long time, Biden’s team has said that his low poll numbers don’t really show where things stand in November, when voters have a clear choice and can think about what would happen if Trump won again.
“If he can shape the terms of the debate, if he can shape this public sense about what’s at stake in this upcoming election, he’ll be able to recover some advantage that right now is slipping,” said Howell.
But Biden has to make the case starting Thursday night.