The delayed SOTU provides Biden with additional time to confront the COVID-19 pandemic – whose resurgence is creating new headaches for the economy and heaping pressure on an already overburdened health care system – and find fresh momentum for his landmark domestic policy package.
Biden’s so-called Build Back Better plan – which includes over a trillion dollars in funding for child care, senior care, education, and climate change mitigation – has stalled in the Senate, due to the current opposition by one member of Biden’s own Democratic Party.
The president also hopes to pass landmark voter rights legislation at a time when Democrats accuse Republicans of seeking to restrict voting options in several states.
If he does find a way to push the reforms through, the State of the Union address would provide him with a major platform to tout the wins to the American public.
The speech comes with a backdrop of low approval ratings for the 79-year-old Biden and looming November midterm elections, in which the president’s party almost always loses seats in Congress.
It also puts additional distance between the speech and the Jan 6 anniversary of last year’s insurrection at the US Capitol, where a furious mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed Congress, hoping to block certification of Biden’s 2020 election win.
On Thursday in the Capitol, Biden delivered a scathing speech accusing Trump of spreading election “lies” and denouncing him as a threat to American democracy.
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