The speech provided Biden one of his biggest audiences of the year as he made his case for a second term and contrasted his vision of the country's future with Republicans ahead of what's expected to be a lengthy general election fight with former President Donald Trump.
ABC News live-blogged every major moment and highlight from the speech, with 538 providing analysis and a closer look at the polling and data behind the politicians.
Santos arrives to Capitol for Biden's speech in surprise appearance
As he told ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott he would, disgraced former Republican Rep. George Santos arrived to the House chamber on Thursday night about an hour before Biden's speech begins.
He was seen seated on the GOP side near the aisle -- his normal position when he was a voting lawmaker.
As a former member, Santos retains the privilege of accessing the House floor. He would need to be convicted of one of his criminal charges to be banned from the floor. He has pleaded not guilty.
-ABC News' John Parkinson
Mar 07, 2024, 8:09 PM EST
Republicans spotlighting slain college student amid criticism of Biden's border policies
Republicans plan to keep an empty seat in memoriam of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was killed on the University of Georgia's Athens campus last month.
Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., said he invited Riley's parents to be guests at the State of the Union though "they have chosen to stay home as they grieve the loss of their daughter."
Biden's address comes hours after the House passed the Laken Riley Act, which would require detention of any unauthorized migrant who commits burglary or theft.
The suspect charged in Riley's killing, Jose Antonio Ibarra, unlawfully entered the U.S. near El Paso, Texas, in September 2022 and was paroled and released for further processing, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said following his arrest in Georgia.
ICE said that Ibarra was subsequently arrested by New York City police in 2023 and released before federal officials could ask for his detention. The NYPD has said there is no arrest on file.
Laken Riley is seen in an undated photo.
Augusta University
The Laken Riley Act passed the House 251-170, with 37 Democrats voting for it. Some opposing it believe Republicans are using Riley's death for their own political gain to place blame on the Biden administration's border policies as polling shows immigration is a top issue for some voters.
Mar 07, 2024, 8:00 PM EST
Abortion is a winning issue for Democrats, and possibly for Biden
I’m especially interested in what the president has to say about abortion rights. It has been a winning issue for Democrats, and a losing one for Republicans, since the Supreme Court upended the status quo and reversed Roe v. Wade's protections in June 2022. In fact, polling shows that Americans have become even more supportive of abortion rights since the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization was issued.
Democrats will be eager to campaign on expanding and protecting reproductive health this fall, and their voters rank the issue highly, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll.
In that same poll, 55% of voters said they want to see the federal government protect abortion access across the country, and one in eight voters said it was the most important factor determining their vote.
On the opposite side, many anti-abortion groups want their candidates to support a national ban, something that’s very unpopular with the public as a whole.
-Monica Potts, 538
Mar 07, 2024, 7:58 PM EST
Gold Star parents of Marines killed in Afghanistan to attend address
House Speaker Mike Johnson invited two Gold Star parents, Alicia Lopez and Darin Hoover, who both lost children in the Kabul airport bombing during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, to attend Biden's State of the Union.
"President Biden's hasty, unconditional withdrawal from Afghanistan was a failure for America and its allies. It led to the tragic deaths," Johnson contended in a statement to ABC News, in part, ahead of the address. Biden has defended the decision to end the decadeslong war.
