US President Joe Biden is scheduled to give his annual State of the Union Address on Tuesday. Unfortunately, most Americans are not optimistic about the Union\u2019s current state.
\nAhead of US President Joe Biden\u2019s State of the Union speech on Tuesday, Americans have grown increasingly worried about the direction the country is headed toward – including most Democrats.
\nAccording to a Monmouth University poll taken in late January, less than four in ten (39%) Americans feel the State of the Union is either \u201cvery strong\u201d or \u201csomewhat strong,\u201d with only 7% saying they think it is \u201cvery strong.\u201d
\nMeanwhile, 58% of Americans believe the state of the Union is either \u201cnot too strong\u201d or \u201cnot strong at all.\u201d In the same poll taken in March of last year, 56% of Americans responded that the state of the Union was strong.
\nWhen asked if they thought the country was on the right or wrong track, 73% of poll respondents said it was on the wrong track. There was a strong partisan divide among the respondents (only 6% of Republicans said the country was on the right track) but a majority of Democrats, 55%, agree with the 93% of Republicans who say the country is on the wrong track. Independents, critical to any national election, are likewise pessimistic about the course the country is on: 75% say the country is headed down the wrong track.
\nAmericans also no longer see the US government as a force of good in their lives. A majority, 59%, say that Washington has a negative impact on their lives. In 2015, when Monmouth first added that question to the poll, that number was just 50%. Only 16% said the current government has a positive impact on their lives in the most recent poll.
\nBiden\u2019s speech on Tuesday will be the first time he addresses Congress after the midterm elections saw Republicans take control of the House of Representatives. He is expected to tout his administration\u2019s accomplishments and lay out his goals for 2023.
\nThe poll surveyed 805 Americans and had a margin of error of 5.7%.
\nHow to Have Fun Watching the Address?
\nBiden is not known as the best orator. For anyone planning to watch the Tuesday speech and wants to spice up the viewing and lay down some action, online sportsbooks are offering prop bets. The most straightforward bet is how long the speech will be (Over\/Under 59.5 minutes).
\nOther bets include who the designated survivor will be (Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland is the odds-on favorite at +700), if House Leader Kevin McCarthy will channel his inner Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) by ripping a copy of Biden\u2019s speech and how many times the Washington Post will fact check Biden, among other options.
\nGov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AK) will be giving the Republican response, online bookies have been offering a few prop bets for that as well.
\nIf you prefer to risk your sobriety rather than money, State of the Union drinking games were all the rage during the Trump administration and Biden\u2019s first address. There doesn\u2019t appear that any media outlets made \u201cofficial\u201d rules this time around, but outlines drawn for Biden\u2019s 2022 speech will likely suffice for all but the most hardened drinkers.<\/p>\n
Sputniknews
\nTags\uff1aBiden<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US President Joe Biden is scheduled to give his annual State of the Union Address on Tuesday. Unfortunately, most Americans are not optimistic about the Union\u2019s current state. Ahead of US President Joe Biden\u2019s State of the Union speech on Tuesday, Americans have grown increasingly worried about the direction the country is headed toward – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5405,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1199,1375,1672],"class_list":["post-5404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-americans","tag-state","tag-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5406,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5404\/revisions\/5406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}