MADISON, Wis. — President Biden stood in front of hard-hat-wearing union members on Wednesday and ticked off the federally funded benefits that would soon reach the region: a new terminal at the Port of Green Bay that’s “going to create thousands of jobs over time,” a replacement of the aging Wisconsin River Bridge, 46 electric buses that will replace “dirty diesel buses” on Madison streets.
But a few miles away, Christine Elholm, a Democrat who voted for Biden and would love to tout his successes to her more skeptical friends, struggled to identify any of these projects or how they will improve her community. She regularly watches MSNBC and the local evening news and she scrolls through headlines on The Washington Post to stay informed, but, she said, “I have to admit, I’m not in tune to how some of these policies are affecting our city yet.”
“I know there will be some benefit here,” said Elholm, 71, a retired University of Wisconsin employee. “I think President Biden has done amazing things that he has not gotten credit for. It makes me frustrated that those accomplishments are not being recognized the way they should. I think that approval rating should be much higher than it is.”
That gap between the way Biden touts the impact of his policies and the experience of people like Elholm is shaping up as a critical deficit ahead of Biden’s expected reelection announcement. Biden and members of his administration are spending the days after his State of the Union address fanning out across the country to extol what they call historical successes: a bipartisan infrastructure bill, an unemployment rate at a five-decade-low, lower drug prices, a globe-crippling pandemic fading into history.
It’s a critical part of Biden’s governing philosophy: If people directly see and feel that government is helping them, they will embrace democracy, regain faith in Washington — and perhaps, vote Democratic.
But it’s unclear that voters are connecting his agenda to their everyday lives in that way. A Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 62 percent of Americans believe Biden has accomplished either “not very much” or “little or nothing” during his first two years. Majorities of Americans say he has failed to deliver on his signature initiatives, including creating jobs, rebuilding infrastructure and making electric vehicles more affordable.
That divide is particularly worrisome for Biden now, at an inflection point in his presidency. He has said he will seek a second term, and the strength of his reelection argument could depend on his ability to communicate what his administration has done so far. At the State of the Union, he introduced a potential campaign theme: “Let’s finish the job.”
In November’s midterms, Republicans wrested control of the House from Democrats, and the GOP has vowed to stymie Biden’s agenda leading up to the 2024 election. That means Biden will spend much of the next two years trying to persuade voters of the value of what he has done in the last two.
That process is already underway. The president has been hopscotching the country for weeks to argue that his bills are tackling communities’ long-festering problems, from a tunnel in Baltimore (“For years, people talked about fixing this tunnel”) to a bridge in Kentucky (“They’ve been fighting this for years, to get the funding to repair the bridge”).
The events at times resemble a mayor’s appearances at a ribbon-cutting. But Biden’s message — that his hard-earned laws are helping local families in tangible ways — has not clearly broken through.
On Wednesday, Biden spoke at a training center outside Madison, addressing a crowd that could be measured in dozens. On a short set of bleachers with a capacity for at least 60 people, a group of less than 24 union workers and apprentices stood behind him, forming a sparse backdrop of orange shirts, brightly colored vests and white hard hats. There were often large gaps between each person.
The modest crowd cheered and clapped at key moments during Biden’s speech, particularly when he delivered his signature lines hailing unions or assailing Republicans with populist barbs.
Outside, roads and businesses within a wide perimeter of the event were closed for hours, creating a quiet, dull atmosphere and frustrating several residents who said they did not realize Biden was in town. Others were annoyed upon learning that they could not attend the event, which was closed to the public and not advertised in advance.
Biden spent a little over five hours on the ground in Wisconsin, roughly half of it spent recording a PBS interview set to air later that evening. He gave no sit-down interviews to local newspapers or broadcast stations while in town.
By comparison, a day after delivering the State of the Union address in 2011, President Barack Obama talked to about 250 employees at a lighting factory in Manitowoc in northeastern Wisconsin. The crowd was larger than Biden’s on Wednesday, and Obama’s visits to the state generated dramatically more excitement.
Biden has argued that Obama’s administration, in which he was a central player, made a mistake by spending too little time promoting its achievements to the American public.
“We didn’t adequately explain what we had done,” Biden said at a meeting of House Democrats last year, as he urged them to pass the American Rescue Plan. “Barack was so modest. He didn’t want to take, as he said, a ‘victory lap.’ I kept saying, ‘Tell people what we did.’ He said: ‘We don’t have time. I’m not going to take a victory lap.’ And we paid a price for it, ironically, for that humility.”
Ben Wikler, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said that although not everyone knows about Biden’s accomplishments now, they will learn quickly when and if he announces a run for reelection, as his campaign and its allies sink money into ads praising his record.
“Campaigns are when you place your record before the public and ask for voter support. So we’re in early days,” Wikler said. “The really good news for Democrats is that there’s a tremendous amount to work with. Every community in this country has benefited directly from President Biden’s victories and will continue to benefit as the infrastructure bill is implemented.”
He cited energy-efficiency tax breaks for people’s homes as an example of the Biden measures that affect Americans personally. “It will be discussed not only on political news shows, but also on financial advice talk radio and people’s kitchen tables,” Wikler said.
Republicans argue that Biden in fact has few accomplishments to speak of, beyond expensive, wasteful bills that give more power to Washington. He has done little to address the country’s real problems, they say, such as immigration, crime and higher prices.
“Biden’s first re-election campaign stop in Madison will do nothing to improve his standing with Wisconsin voters,” Brian Schimming, the state’s GOP chairman, said in a statement. “Wisconsin households and businesses have faced crushing inflation, decreasing real wages and increasing energy bills for months, and trying to buy votes with his inflationary spending and Green New Deal agenda isn’t the answer to helping Wisconsin families.”
Voters in Madison, a fast-growing, reliably Democratic bastion in this swing state, expressed mixed feelings about a presidential persona that lacks the lightning-strike charisma of Obama or former president Donald Trump. A messenger who seized the spotlight would have an easier time finding a platform to brag, they said, but America elected a man who promised to turn the page from the chaos and conflict of the Trump administration.
Some supporters say they worry that Biden’s calm demeanor equates to bland.
“I think he’s just constitutionally unable to be outrageous enough,” said Peter Cannon, 75, a retired analyst, adding that Biden’s low-profile style is particularly ill-suited to a culture filled with myriad attractions competing for people’s interest. “In the past when a politician came to town to give a speech, everybody turned out because it was the only game in town. There was no radio to distract you from going to hear the speech. There was no TV, there was no Netflix.”
On Tuesday night, according to Nielsen ratings, roughly 27.3 million people watched Biden’s State of the Union, a 29 percent falloff from last year’s speech and among the least-viewed in decades.
But others argued that the specifics of individual projects are beside the point. Kurt Stege, a retired attorney, said the president’s calm style is one of the reasons he voted for him after four years of a political roller coaster under Trump.
“I can sit back and relax under Biden. I know things are being done that need to be done,” he said. “But am I aware of initiatives that have actually been started within the last 12 months? I could not point to any.”
In some ways, Biden’s approach mirrors that of Tony Evers, Wisconsin’s low-key Democratic governor, who acknowledged in his reelection victory speech last November that he was not the flashiest figure. “Some people call it boring, but you know what, Wisconsin? As it turns out, boring wins,” Evers said.
Still, many Democrats fret over Biden’s low approval ratings, given what they see as his clear accomplishments.
Joe Wineke, a former chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, praised Biden for passing big-ticket items — pandemic relief, infrastructure legislation, assistance to Ukraine — especially with slim majorities in Congress. But he said Biden and the Democrats need to do a better job of touting those accomplishments.
“He does need the right message,” Wineke said. “I don’t exactly know what that message is, because he keeps saying the right stuff. … He should be in so much better shape.”
