With the 2023 State of the Union address on deck, a look at Texas views of President Joe Biden

President Joe Biden is widely expected to use his third State of the Union address to tout legislative achievements in the first two years of his presidency while pointng to historically low unemployment – even as the Federal Reserve continues its efforts to wring price inflation out of an economy still on an uncertain trajectory. The political terrain is just as uncertain. Biden will address a Congress now divided between a Democratically-controlled Senate and narrow GOP majority in the House of Representatives, with the ongoing negotiations over raising the debt ceiling looming over the proceedings. The discussion of foreign policy in the speech likely would have focused on NATO support of Ukraine's resistance to the nearly year-old Russian invation. But the Chinese balloon that traversed Yellowstone country last week before being shot down over U.S. airspace by a U.S. military jet shortly after it reached the Atlantic, will float China back to the center of the foreign policy section of the speech.

While the 2022 election proved to be a relative success for Biden compared to the usual (and widely predicted) first mid-term losses experienced by the party of incumbent presidents, Texas voters' assessment of him reflect the political landscape in a state which stayed firmly in Republican hands at the state level in 2022 after voting for loser Donald Trump by a margin of 52.1% to Biden's 46.5% in 2020. In the December 2022 University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll, 42% approved of the job Biden is doing, while 50% disapproved, 43%  strongly (including 83% of Republicans and 49% of independents who strong disapproved). More ominous in the same poll, nearly a third of Texans still think Biden was not the legitimate winner of the 2022 presidential election, including 61% of Republicans (with another 16% still saying they are not sure). Texas, of course, is likely not central to the President's electoral strategy as he positions himself for what is, at this point, a widely anticipated but still not formally announced reelection campaign. (In the August UT/Texas Politics Project Poll, only 24% said he should run for reelection, including only 42% of Texas Democrats.)  

The partisan patterns in Texas support or lack thereof for Biden are evident in almost all assessments of him in Texas Politics Project polling. The results compiled below provide data on Biden's job approval, views of the 2020 election, and views of Biden' performance on the economy, gun violence, immigration and border security, crime, climate change, and foreign policy. With Ukraine and now China looming large in the speech, we've also included very recent results from a battery of questions probling attitudes toward foreign countries and foreign policy from our December 2022 poll.

The softest spots in Biden's overall approval in areas like the economy and border security loomed large in 2022 state elections, and Republicans continue to use resisting or reversing Biden's priorities are already inflecting the politics of the 88th Texas legislature. While the SOTU is always a big (if fleeting) moment in national politics, Biden's action (or inaction) on all of these domestic policy issues have been and will contine to be used as foils by Republicans in Texas as the session unfolds. 

Job approval (December, 2022)

Job approval trend

Views of household and national economy

Views of legitimacy of 2022 election

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Issue approval (October 2022)

The economy

Gun violence

Immigration and border security

Crime and public safety

Climate change

Foreign policy

Additional foreign policy attitudes

Views of China

Views of Ukraine

Comparative views of selected countries

U.S. Support of Urkraine

Attitudes toward U.S. international engagement

Coda