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| President Biden delivered his State of the Union address last year.POOL/GETTY |
Polls show the biggest liability for the 81-year-old Biden is his age in the near-certain rematch with Donald Trump in November. The annual speech could yield the largest TV audience Biden will get in 2024, which offers him an opportunity to show millions of Americans he’s capable of handling another four years in the world’s most demanding job.
At the same time, any slipup — verbal or physical — will amplify the substantial worries that he’s not.
“The stakes are about as high as they can get, other than Election Day itself,” said Barbara A. Perry, professor in presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “If there is a gaffe, it will be played over and over again.”
White House and Biden campaign officials say he will tout his accomplishments and lay out his agenda for a second term. They began rolling out parts of that agenda this week, including a renewed push against so-called junk fees on credit cards and other services that increase the cost of living for average Americans. Starting Friday, Biden, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris and a dozen top administration officials, will fan out across the country to spread the message.
“The road to victory is about earning, not just asking for, the American people’s support,” Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote in a memo on the race released Wednesday. “That means putting in the work in every community, meeting voters where they are about the stakes of this election, and investing everywhere.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that Biden will talk in his address about lowering costs, abortion rights, and “fighting for our democracy.” But Jean-Pierre gave few other details ahead of the speech, which Biden and his senior staff worked on at Camp David over the weekend and continue to fine-tune.
An estimated 27.3 million people watched his State of the Union address last year, the second-smallest audience since at least 1993, according to Nielsen ratings. Still, that was more than the 24.6 million viewers for his acceptance speech at the 2020 Democratic convention.
The uncertainty surrounding the three traditional presidential debates this fall raises the stakes even further. Biden’s campaign has not committed to participate. Trump declined to participate in Republican primary debates, although on Wednesday he called for Biden to debate him.
Democrats are hoping Thursday night will offer a reprise of Biden’s strong performance in his 2023 address. At one point, he veered off script after his comment that “some Republicans” wanted “Medicare and Social Security to sunset” triggered a barrage of boos and catcalls from the GOP side of the chamber. Biden quickly turned the response back on them.
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“So folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right?” Biden responded, flashing a thumbs up as bipartisan cheers broke out. “All right, we got unanimity.”
Senator Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, said that in addition to reminding Americans about “his extraordinary accomplishments” on Thursday night, Biden has to deal with “the age issue.”
“He’s got to show that he’s ready to roll up his sleeves, get in the mud, and start wrestling with alligators. He did really well doing that a year ago. And he’s got a chance to do that again,” Welch said, anticipating some congressional Republicans will be eager to heckle Biden. “He will be in a swamp with a bunch of alligators, so I think the opportunity probably will arise.”
Biden also could face pushback from progressive Democrats, and potentially protesters in the House chamber, over his continued strong support for Israel in its war with Hamas. Protesters have dogged Biden at his public events for weeks, and progressives have demonstrated their anger by voting uncommitted in Democratic primaries.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat who has called for a cease-fire in Gaza, said Biden can only address the concerns of those voters by his actions. Words in his speech won’t be enough.
“This is not about politics. This is about doing what’s right,” Warren said, adding that she was encouraged by Harris’s call on Sunday for an immediate cease-fire.
Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg said Thursday’s speech comes as voters start to focus on the start of the general election campaign now that the nominees are just about set. Biden and Trump have nearly enough delegates to clinch their respective nominations after Super Tuesday and Trump’s remaining challenger, Nikki Haley, dropped out Wednesday.
“I think this speech really matters for Biden,” Rosenberg said. “For him to win the election, he’s got to make the case that he’s made the country better since he’s been president, and he’s got a powerful rationale. We need to hear that in this speech.”
Recent polls show a close race between Biden and Trump, with Trump holding a narrow lead in many of them, including in key battleground states. And a poll released Saturday by The New York Times and Siena College found 73 percent of registered voters agreed that Biden “is just too old to be an effective president.” Just 42 percent of registered voters said the same about Trump.
“Obviously there’s going to be a lot of focus on his performance and how he does as a leader, as there should be. Donald Trump’s going to have the same scrutiny when he speaks,” Rosenberg said. Biden “needs to be forceful and strong and presidential. I think if he is, it will address a lot of the concerns that people have.”
Those concerns were magnified by last month’s special counsel report on Biden’s handling of classified documents before he became president. It concluded that no criminal charges were warranted, but described Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Biden and White House officials strongly objected to that characterization. But in a news conference blasting the report, Biden committed a verbal gaffe by calling the president of Egypt the president of Mexico.
Asked Wednesday if Biden believes concerns about his age are valid, Jean-Pierre pointed to his long experience in the Senate and as vice president.
“He’s been very honest about his age. . . . He makes jokes about his friend Jimmy Madison, right?” Jean-Pierre said, referencing the founding father. “But this is also a president that has gotten done more in the last three years than most presidents have in their two terms . . . and a lot of that is because of his experience.”
But the risks for Biden Thursday night are great, said Republican strategist Doug Heye. Even if Biden successfully spars with Republicans who are “acting inappropriately,” that moment could be overtaken by any significant gaffe, he said.
“This is the biggest speech of his career and the biggest State of the Union that I can remember,” Heye said. “Everybody’s going to be watching him, not for what he says — that’s obviously important, especially for certain audiences — but for how he says it.”
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