Analysis of Obama’s State of the Union Address

It was a night of slickly choreographed speechmaking, but not for Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.

Following the State of the Union, while Senator Joni Ernst was giving the official Republican rebuttal, Mr. Cruz stood inside the Capitol and gave his own response. Standing in an echoing hallway in front a statue of Stephen Austin, Mr. Cruz railed against the president.

“It’s time to move beyond President Obama,” Mr. Cruz said, speaking into what appeared to be a cellphone video camera that was lacking light.

Apparently, the first take was not good enough for Mr. Cruz, who is well known for being verbose. A minute into the three-minute speech, Mr. Cruz winced and said, “Eh, let me start over again.”

Mr. Cruz’s team was ultimately unhappy with his performance, too. The video is no longer available on YouTube.

— ALAN RAPPEPORT

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“I look around the world and I see a lot of places give free education and I think it would really help lift the burden off the students. I have a lot of grants and I have some loans, too.”

Name: Christopher Jones

Age: 21

Location: Dallas

Party: Democrat

Occupation Student

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Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., left, with House Speaker John A. Boehner.

If his feelings about the State of the Union address weren’t clear enough from his facial expressions during the speech, Speaker John A. Boehner stated them more explicitly directly after: He was not impressed.

In a statement after the speech, Mr. Boehner criticized President Obama for pushing “more taxes, more government, and more of the same approach that has failed middle-class families. These aren’t just the wrong policies,” Mr. Boehner said, “they’re the wrong priorities: growing Washington’s bureaucracy instead of America’s economy.”

Mr. Boehner advised viewers of Mr. Obama’s speech to instead turn their attention to the Republican response, delivered by Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa.

— ALAN RAPPEPORT

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Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, rehearsed her response earlier on Tuesday.

Senator Joni Ernst, who was elected to the Senate from Iowa in November, reintroduced herself to the American public on Tuesday, brandishing her small-town credentials and modest upbringing.

“As a young girl, I plowed the fields of our family farm. I worked construction with my dad. To save for college, I worked the morning biscuit line at Hardee’s,” Ms. Ernst said in the prepared text of her State of the Union rebuttal.

Ms. Ernst also invoked her grandparents, saying “They had very little to call their own except the sweat on their brow and the dirt on their hands. But they worked, they sacrificed, and they dreamed big dreams for their children and grandchildren.”

The Republican senator did weigh in on policy matters too, arguing that the Keystone XL pipeline needed to move forward, that the Affordable Care Act must be repealed and that Mr. Obama needs to do more to work with Republicans.

— ALAN RAPPEPORT

In much of President Obama’s State of the Union speech, he discussed unifying themes.

But in one off-script moment, he flashed his notoriously competitive side.

Mr. Obama likes to remind voters that his days of running for office are over and he did so on Tuesday night, offering, “I have no more campaigns to run.”

The Republican side of the chamber broke out in cheers and Mr. Obama, cracking a sly smile, responded: “I know because I won them both.”

After that, it was back to bipartisanship.

— ALAN RAPPEPORT

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Mitt Romney was quick to respond to President Obama’s off-handed remark in his speech that he has “no more campaigns to run,” adding, “I should know, because I won both of them.”

In a response posted to Mr. Romney’s Facebook page, he called the speech “disappointing.”

“True to form, the President in his State of the Union speech is more interested in politics than in leadership,” Mr. Romney said. “More intent on winning elections than on winning progress, he ignores the fact that the country has elected a Congress that favors smaller government and lower taxes.”

— NICK CORASANITI

Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa with the Republican response to the State of the Union address.

Update: The text of the response.

@BarackObama #SOTU pointed way to an economy that works for all. Now we need to step up & deliver for the middle class. #FairShot #FairShare

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) 21 Jan 15

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Can President Obama take credit for low gasoline prices? It certainly sounded as if he wanted to.

Mr. Obama highlighted the fact that the United States is now the world’s largest oil and gas producer and that gasoline prices have dropped. “Thanks to lower gas prices and higher fuel standards, the typical family this year should save $750 at the pump,” he said.

But the boom in domestic oil and gas production has little to do with the policies of this administration. That has come thanks to technology breakthroughs in hydraulic fracturing, made largely by the private sector – and most of the new oil and gas has been drilled on private land. The glut of new United States fossil fuel, combined with a slowdown in global consumption and the fact that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has not cut production – as it often does during price drops – are the chief drivers of lower gasoline prices.

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However, Mr. Obama can take credit for one piece of the energy savings picture. In his first term, he muscled through aggressive new Environmental Protection Agency rules designed to force auto manufacturers to make cars with much higher fuel economy. As those new highly efficient cars fill the market, consumers will need to purchase less and less gasoline to drive the same distance – thus leading to a different kind of savings.

— CORAL DAVENPORT

When President Obama talked about extending the Internet’s reach to “every community,” what he was really talking about was increasing competition among Internet providers.

As anyone who has shopped for Internet and cable service knows, most people have no choice to buy it from any company besides Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T or Verizon. The result of the lack of competition is that most Americans have both slower and more expensive Internet service than people in many other countries.

Yet there are a few American cities that tie for speed with the biggest cities abroad.

In each, the high-speed Internet provider is not one of the big cable or phone companies, but a city-run network or start-up service. These are the kinds of community broadband networks that President Obama was talking about. I explain how they would increase competition in a post for The Upshot.

— CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

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President Obama spoke about the need for child care, sick days and maternity leave.

“Today, we’re the only advanced country on earth that doesn’t guarantee paid sick leave or paid maternity leave to our workers,” he said.

“And that forces too many parents to make the gut-wrenching choice between a paycheck and a sick kid at home.”

Here is the data behind his claim: Of the 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, which includes much of Europe, Mexico, Australia, South Korea and Japan, the United States is the only one with zero weeks of paid maternity leave.

— CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

Over the past year, Republican candidates have repeatedly avoided questions about climate change by responding, “I’m not a scientist” – with the unspoken implication that they thus can’t make climate policy. In his address, Mr. Obama delivered a sharp retort to that argument.

“Well, I’m not a scientist, either,” he said. “But you know what – I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA, and NOAA, and at our major universities. The best scientists in the world are all telling us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we do not act forcefully, we’ll continue to see rising oceans, longer, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods, and massive disruptions that can trigger greater migration, conflict and hunger around the globe. The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. We should act like it.”

As expected, he offered a full-throated defense of his controversial climate change regulations. This summer, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to finalize a set of rules to slash carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants. That move has met with fierce opposition from Republicans and coal-state Democrats – but internationally, Mr. Obama hopes that it will give the United States credibility in forging a global climate accord in December.

“I am determined to make sure American leadership drives international action,” he said.

— CORAL DAVENPORT

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“Health care shouldn’t be a necessity. If you want health care, you can get it. If you don’t want it, you shouldn’t be forced. That’s just one more hindrance, one more pain we have, one more bill we have.”

Name: Juarez Myers

Age: 27

Location: Sacramento

Party: Democrat

Occupation Security guard

President Obama is right: Health care inflation is at its lowest rate in 50 years.

But the causes of that welcome trend remain complex and controversial, and may not be a result of the president’s policies.

While there are some indications that the Affordable Care Act may be helping urge that trend along at the margins, it probably shouldn’t get too much of the credit. Most health economists credit the lingering effects of the Great Recession for a portion of the trend. As more people sign up for health insurance and start using the system for the first time, health spending is expected to tick back up.

The other factors explaining the slowdown are a source of great debate: Some seems to be a result of changes in they way health care is being delivered that produce less waste and higher quality care.

— MARGOT SANGER-KATZ

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Mr. Obama went for common ground on cyber-legislation — pass something, anything, that will keep foreign countries and thieves and child pornographers from taking advantage of global networks.

But he made no explicit mention of North Korea, believed responsible for the attacks on Sony Pictures Entertainment. Nor did he talk specifics about what a cyber-bill would contain.

There are strong arguments against such a bill, which is why the effort to pass such legislation has failed four years in a row. But Mr. Obama clearly calculated that the details were too complex, or too divisive, for an upbeat State of the Union speech. So he promised to protect both security and privacy — and leave the details to later.

— DAVID E. SANGER

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Alan P. Gross, the American contractor who was released last month after five years of captivity in Cuba.

Foreign policy and national security issues took a back seat to economic matters in this year’s speech.

President Obama hailed his deal with President Raúl Castro of Cuba to restore full diplomatic relations between the countries for the first time in more than half a century. “When what you’re doing doesn’t work for 50 years, it’s time to try something new,” Mr. Obama said.

Not only will it be easier for Americans to travel to Cuba, but also to send money. American telecommunications providers, financial institutions and agricultural companies will be given more opportunities to do business in Cuba. Visitors will be allowed to spend more, use credit cards and even bring home up to $100 in Cuban cigars.

One of the Americans most directly affected by the diplomatic rapprochement is Alan P. Gross, the American contractor who was released last month after five years of captivity in Cuba. He sat in the first lady’s box at Tuesday’s speech, and received a huge ovation when Mr. Obama recognized him.

Mr. Obama is taking these steps through executive order. Lifting the embargo completely will take congressional action – action the president urged. But he faces stiff bipartisan opposition in Congress, where critics say Mr. Obama is playing into the hands of the Castro brothers by relaxing sanctions without obtaining commitments from them to expand freedoms for Cubans.

— ERIC SCHMITT

Why do presidents invite and introduce guests like Capt. Phillip Tingirides and Ana Zamora to the State of the Union?
One answer may surprise you, writes Lynn Vavreck, a political scientist, on The Upshot. Their stories provide context for the policy positions politicians fight about.

— DAMON DARLIN

President Obama addressed Iran in his speech, saying that “for the first time in a decade, we’ve halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material.”

But he also expressed a bit of skepticism that a final nuclear deal would be struck and warned that new sanctions proposed by a Republican-controlled Congress would “all but guarantee that diplomacy fails.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said.

But to most Republicans and some Democrats it makes plenty of sense; they argue that it is sanctions, and the increasingly high price Iran has paid for retaining its nuclear program, that have driven the Iranian government to the bargaining table. The Obama White House, they say, has always opposed more sanctions, then embraced them later.

But for Mr. Obama, the next few months are the endgame of a diplomatic mission he began days after taking office in 2009. And he argues he is not about to let Congress mess it up, solely so they can take a popular vote against the Iranian regime.

“The American people expect us to only go to war as a last resort,” he said, an unspoken reference to the war of choice in Iraq. “And I intend to stay true to that wisdom.”

— DAVID E. SANGER

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Normally, “Who Wore It Best” is reserved for the red carpet at the Golden Globes or the Academy Awards.

But Tuesday evening in the House chamber, the first lady Michelle Obama provided a little sartorial intrigue when she sported what appeared to be the same dress that Alicia Florrick — played by the actress Julianna Margulies on CBS’s legal drama “The Good Wife” — wore in a recent episode.

Tonight: Michelle Obama is bringing some fierce Alicia Florrick! #SOTU #thegoodwife //t.co/Ey5OfWCCzT

— Taylor Cole Miller (@taycole) 21 Jan 15

The show chronicles the personal life and legal escapades of Ms. Florrick, a politician’s wife and lawyer (much like Ms. Obama) in Chicago (Ms. Obama’s hometown).

— ASHLEY PARKER

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President Obama told Congress on Tuesday that he wanted to push forward with biomedical research to develop treatments tailored to the genetic profiles of individual patients.

“Tonight,” he said, “I’m launching a new precision medicine initiative to bring us closer to curing diseases like cancer and diabetes — and to give all of us access to the personalized information we need to keep ourselves and our families healthier.”

Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, contrasted this approach with customary methods of diagnosis and treatment.

“The promise of precision medicine,” she said, “is that it gives us the ability to develop medical treatments that are highly tailored to the individual characteristics of patients.”

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health said they were using such techniques to diagnose different “subtypes” of cancer and to identify genetic abnormalities that might explain why some tumors responded better than others to specific cancer-fighting drugs.

— ROBERT PEAR

President Obama made reference to the Keystone XL pipeline in his speech – but only to suggest that, as many energy policy experts have said over the past few months, the project’s political importance far outweighs its substantive impact.

The Senate on Tuesday kicked off a weekslong debate over the Keystone pipeline – but the bill’s fate is already certain, as Mr. Obama has pledged to veto it.

“Twenty-first century businesses need 21st century infrastructure – modern ports, stronger bridges, faster trains and the fastest Internet. Democrats and Republicans used to agree on this. So let’s set our sights higher than a single oil pipeline,” Mr. Obama said. “Let’s pass a bipartisan infrastructure plan that could create more than 30 times as many jobs per year, and make this country stronger for decades to come.”

However, he made no mention of the policy that most economists say is necessary to pay for new road and bridge construction – an increase in the gasoline tax. In both politics and substance, that far outweighs Keystone.

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— CORAL DAVENPORT

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The president said that his budget would lower “the taxes of working families” and put “thousands of dollars back into their pockets each year.” His plan, released by the White House on Saturday, would also increase taxes on the wealthiest, in part by raising the top capital gains and dividends rate to 28 percent.

— NEW YORK TIMES GRAPHICS

The State of the Union address is often derided as a canned affair.

The White House leaks the best parts to the media before the president even sets foot in the House chamber. As a result, politicians and pundits chew it all over so many times it’s a wonder they have anything more to say after the speech.

If any further evidence were needed of how much the reaction lacks spontaneity, look no further than email inboxes across Washington, where recorded video responses to the president’s speech were arriving ahead of the 9 p.m. start time.

Senator Jim Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, recorded one. “By reining in President Obama’s over-regulation and by rebuilding a strong national security, we can survive the Obama administration,” he said.

So did Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, who said in his video that the speech was filled with “things Congress wouldn’t ever do.”

Senator Cory Gardner, Republican of Colorado, rendered his verdict via YouTube as well. “It’s Congress’s job to govern responsibly, and that means putting bills on the president’s desk which address big issues. And hopefully, when Congress does, the president will sign them.”

Judging from the president’s prepared remarks, a lot of bill signings aren’t coming any time soon.

— JEREMY PETERS

Part of the of the State of the Union is the stagecraft — who leaps to their feet and claps (the Democrats, generally), who pointedly remains sitting and silent (the Republicans, generally), and who wears the awesome Michael Jackson-style black lace gloves (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for the win).

And early into the President Obama’s speech, Republicans remained notably silent — when the president talked about the roughly 10 million people who “finally gained the security of health coverage,” and then moments later, when he extolled the “fastest economic growth in over a decade, our deficits cut by two-thirds, a stock market that has doubled, and health care inflation at its lowest rate in 50 years.”

Noticing the stoic Republican lawmakers, the president briefly paused and ad-libbed a line: “That’s good news, people,” he said with a grin.

That elicited some laughter from the chamber — but still, no real Republican applause.

— ASHLEY PARKER

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President Obama’s upbeat State of the Union address found a glum audience on the Republican side of the chamber.

Republicans have been tempted to claim credit for the strengthening economy — but not on Tuesday night, when they relentlessly found the downside to the economic recovery.

“The economy has shed positions” in middle-class jobs, the Republican National Committee said, citing 321,000 manufacturing jobs lost and 401,000 construction jobs gone.

“Too many Americans remain out of work,” said House Speaker John A. Boehner’s office.

— JONATHAN WEISMAN

We’ve long seen trade deals as a potential area for agreement between President Obama and the Republican congressional majority. Not surprisingly, the president mentioned the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement being negotiated now with Pacific Rim countries, in his speech.

What is interesting is his framing of why the deal may be in the best interest of the United States. Beyond the usual emphasis of trade’s opportunities for American exporters, Mr. Obama framed the deal as a crucial diplomatic counterweight to the rise of China’s influence in Asia and beyond.

“As we speak, China wants to write the rules for the world’s fastest-growing region,” he said, according to the prepared text. “That would put our workers and businesses at a disadvantage. Why would we let that happen? We should write those rules.”

As the debate over the trade deal matures, expect to hear more arguments that it has diplomatic, not just economic, advantages.

— NEIL IRWIN

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Infrastructure, tax reform, trade.

Those are the bipartisan watchwords in President Obama’s State of the Union address. In his speech, he returned repeatedly to the cause of funding infrastructure improvements, even evoking the Keystone XL oil pipeline in one of his pleas.

“Let’s set our sights higher than a single oil pipeline. Let’s pass a bipartisan infrastructure plan that could create more than 30 times as many jobs per year, and make this country stronger for decades to come,” he said in his prepared remarks.

The president’s overture to Republicans on taxes came well into the speech. But he did speak his opponents’ language.

“Let’s close loopholes so we stop rewarding companies that keep profits abroad, and reward those that invest in America,” he said.

The president even nodded to small businesses, which Republicans fear would be left out of an overhaul of the corporate tax code, since most of them pay taxes through the personal income tax code.

“Let’s simplify the system and let a small-business owner file based on her actual bank statement, instead of the number of accountants she can afford,” he said.

Mr. Obama also asked for so-called fast-track trade authority, an issue that appeals to Republicans more than Democrats.

— JONATHAN WEISMAN

Mr. Obama faces a significant challenge – breaking through the clutter that increasingly hinders presidential efforts to communicate with the public. Even an event like the State of the Union faces significant obstacles in reaching a mass audience given the choices that consumers now enjoy, explains Brendan Nyhan, a political science professor at Dartmouth, on The Upshot.

— DAMON DARLIN

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President Obama’s approval ratings have ticked upward in recent months, most likely in connection to increased confidence in the state of the economy. Here’s how his popularity compares with that of other recent two-term presidents.

— NEW YORK TIMES GRAPHICS

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President Obama said Tuesday that “our unemployment rate is now lower than it was before the financial crisis.”

That is true if the crisis is dated to the fall of 2008. The unemployment rate reached 6.1 percent in August 2008, on its way to peaking at 10 percent, and it has since fallen all the way to 5.6 percent.

But by many accounts the financial crisis began as early as the summer of 2007, when the unemployment rate was just 4.6 percent. And when Bear Stearns failed in March 2008, the unemployment rate still stood at only 5.1 percent.

The reality is that the economy still has not recovered completely from the crisis. Unemployment remains considerably higher than the norm of about 5 percent in the years before the Great Recession. And the decline of the unemployment rate overstates the progress of the recovery because it ignores people who have stopped looking for work, or who are only able to find part-time jobs.

— BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

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An odd State of the Union fact: The Supreme Court justices attending the speech evidently don their robes right before going on the House floor.

None of the justices in attendance, including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., had their robes on as they entered the Capitol outside the Senate and walked across the Rotunda over to the House. But once they hit the floor, there were the robes.

No word on who carries the wardrobe and where the Superjudge-like transformation takes place.

— CARL HULSE

The White House took the State of the Union directly to the American public, releasing a full text that would normally be embargoed for reporters just before President Obama spoke.

“For the first time, the White House is making the full text of the speech available to citizens around the country online,” the White House said. “On Medium, you can follow along with the speech as you watch in real time, view charts and infographics on key areas, tweet favorite lines, and leave notes.”

The Obama administration is using social media to attract a wider audience to the speech, which has seen a declining television viewership.

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“If we could get a better price for milk, more kids would stay on the farm and continue to work it. The median age of a farmer now is 59 years­ old. This will have a tragic effect on farming in the future.”

Name: Lara Wilson Shields

Age: 48

Location: North Buffalo Township, Pa.

Party: Independent

Occupation Dairy farmer

Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmentalist and Obama campaign donor who is now weighing a run for California’s open Senate seat, will make his voice heard during the State of the Union address. His group, NextGen Climate, will run an ad during during the speech’s coverage, pushing politicians to act on climate change.

The ad will run on major networks in Washington before, during and after Mr. Obama’s speech.

“We were told the earth was flat, we were told that cigarettes were harmless, and that our planet was the center of the universe,” intones the speaker in the ad, over images of smokestacks, cigarettes and then a photo of the billionaire industrialist David Koch.

“Now they’re telling us that climate change is a hoax — but the science is settled. As Americans, we must make our voices heard and hold the science-denying politicians in Washington accountable.”

Later this week – possibly as soon as Wednesday – senators will go on the record with their views on climate change. As the Senate debates the Keystone XL pipeline, lawmakers are expected to vote on an amendment, sponsored by Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, declaring that climate change is real and caused by human activities.

— CORAL DAVENPORT

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx will be the Cabinet member not attending the State of the Union address in case of emergency.

— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) 21 Jan 15

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“I’m going to be stuck in the same place that I’ve been. Working part time, getting paid minimum wage, making $800 in two weeks. That’s nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

Name: Silvia Yanez

Age: 19

Location: Sacramento

Party: Democrat

Occupation: Student and waitress

State of the Union speeches don’t change minds. But they accomplish one important thing, writes Lynn Vavreck, a professor of political science at U.C.L.A., on The Upshot. They change the set of things that people think are important problems.

— DAMON DARLIN

Back in August, President Obama held a news conference on the threat posed by the Islamic State, while wearing a tan suit.

While the president’s statement was no doubt the news of the day, those on social media took special exception to his attire.

The suit has since been retired, or so we thought.

On Tuesday, Dan Pfeiffer, a senior adviser to the president who has been running the White House Twitter accounts, tweeted a picture of the fabled suit on a hanger, with the hashtag #YesWeTan.

The President’s suiting up for the big speech. Tune into //t.co/tmsUd5yh5y at 9pm ET #YesWeTan //t.co/FC8sKb8hda

— Dan Pfeiffer (@pfeiffer44) 21 Jan 15

No confirmation of whether the tweet was meant to be taken literally, but it took minutes for #yeswetan to be trending in Washington.

— NICK CORASANITI

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Seats filled up ahead of President Obama’s State of the Union Address.

When President Obama began air assaults against the Islamic State in August, the White House argued that he did not need congressional approval. He has been moving gradually away from that position, and on Tuesday night, Mr. Obama will make the request outright.

“Tonight, I call on this Congress to show the world that we are united in this mission by passing a resolution to authorize the use of force against ISIL,” Mr. Obama will say, according to excerpts released by the White House.

Mr. Obama has been drawing criticism from both parties, who argued that he had to be more transparent about his strategy, and Republican leaders asked the president to explicitly ask for a vote, suggesting that they would give him the authorization.

The White House has been rethinking the tone that the president struck on Sept. 10, when in an address to the nation he made it sound as if the battle against the extremists would become the dominant foreign policy objective of his last years in office. Many of his aides thought that was a mistake — that it would tie the president’s standing to the success or failure of an air campaign to degrade the Islamic State, perhaps creating pressure to send in ground forces.

On Tuesday, Mr. Obama will repeat his assurance that the United States will not get “dragged into another ground war in the Middle East.” Instead, he will laud the coalition of forces — in words that sound much like President George W. Bush’s State of the Union addresses a decade ago — and argue that “this effort will take time. It will require focus. But we will succeed.”

— DAVID E. SANGER

President Obama and the Republican-controlled 114th Congress enter the State of the Union pageant as irreconcilable combatants. But for all the fighting over free community college, tax increases on the rich and veto threats over Republican priorities, both sides have carefully walled off two potentially legacy-making areas of agreement: trade and tax reform.

Mr. Obama’s broad proposal to raise capital gains taxes, limit mega-retirement accounts, tax big banks and cut taxes for the poor and middle class carefully steers clear of the meat of the corporate tax code, which both the president and congressional leaders hope to reshape and simplify.

Likewise, for all their bluster, Republicans still appear ready to grant Mr. Obama authority to complete to major trade deals: the Trans-Pacific Partnership with nations along the Pacific Rim and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with Europe.

“There’s a lot we can achieve if we work together,” Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa will say in the Republican response to the president, according to excerpts of her speech. “Let’s tear down trade barriers in places like Europe and the Pacific. Let’s sell more of what we make and grow in America over there so we can boost manufacturing, wages, and jobs right here, at home. Let’s simplify America’s outdated and loophole-ridden tax code.”

— JONATHAN WEISMAN

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“By the time I finish with my [master’s] degree, I’ll probably owe somewhere close to $200,000 in loans. That’s the cost of a house.”

Name: Trisha Clark

Age: 37

Location: Sacramento

Party: Democrat

Occupation Student

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French President Francois Hollande, left, and President Obama in September.

President Obama paused during his State of the Union preparation on Tuesday to put in a call to President François Hollande of France.

Mr. Obama was criticized for snubbing Mr. Hollande earlier this month, after he opted not to attend a unity march in Paris after a terrorist attack at the offices of the newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

In the call to Mr. Hollande on Tuesday, Mr. Obama reaffirmed that the United States would provide the French government with whatever assistance it needed in the aftermath of the attack, the White House said.

Mr. Hollande “expressed gratitude” for Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Paris. The two leaders also talked about the continuing conflict in Ukraine and countering terrorism in Nigeria.

— ALAN RAPPEPORT

Senator Joni Ernst, a military veteran who served in Iraq, is expected to emphasize her military service in her response to the president’s State of the Union speech.

Officials said that Ms. Ernst would deliver her speech after the president’s address from the Senate Armed Services Committee room. Ms. Ernst was appointed to the prestigious committee earlier this year.

Check out the shoes Iowa U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst is wearing tonight for her State of the Union rebuttal. #sotu //t.co/rMCzcg4mxO

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) 21 Jan 15

— CARL HULSE

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“Medicare is wishy­-washy. If you happened to be prescribed meds that are covered, great. If not, it’s expensive.”

Name: Lea Pugh

Age: 69

Location: Johnson City, Tex.

Party: Republican

Occupation Retired

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Senator Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, will deliver a State of the Union rebuttal that calls for bipartisanship in Congress and urges President Obama to work with his opponents.

“There’s a lot we can achieve if we work together,” Ms. Ernst will say, according to excerpts distributed before Mr. Obama’s speech. Points of common ground could include trade and simplifying the tax code, she will say.

Ms. Ernst, whose campaign for Senate rose to national prominence when she talked up her experience castrating pigs as evidence that she would cut spending in Congress, will criticize Mr. Obama’s health care law and argue that the economy is not working for all Americans.

“We see our neighbors agonize over stagnant wages and lost jobs,” she will say. “We see the hurt caused by canceled health care plans and higher monthly insurance bills.”

Ms. Ernst will also express solidarity with American allies in the fight against terrorism and say that with Republicans in control, Congress is ready to get back to work.

— ALAN RAPPEPORT

As President Obama enters the last two years of his second term, he’ll push action on climate change as one of his signature achievements. As he has in past State of the Union addresses, Mr. Obama is likely to speak of the urgent threat of climate change, particularly rising sea levels, as a problem that is happening here and now. And Mr. Obama is likely to highlight the fact that this is one of the issues on which he can create policy through executive action and regulations.

He will try to build support for three Environmental Protection Agency policies set to come out midsummer, including finalized regulations on emissions from new and existing coal-fired power plants. He also wants to build support for his efforts to forge a global climate change accord in Paris in December.

And to put a face to the policy, Michelle Obama will host in her box Nicole Hernandez Hammer, a sea-level researcher in South Florida who works to mobilize the Latino community to demand action on climate change. Ms. Hammer represents a triple threat for advocates of climate change action, who are hoping to harness support in particular from Latinos and voters in presidential swing states.

2014 Breaks Heat Record, Challenging Global Warming Skeptics

By JUSTIN GILLIS

Extreme land temperatures were accompanied by an unusually warm ocean surface virtually everywhere except around Antarctica, scientists reported.

— CORAL DAVENPORT

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Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts at President Obama’s previous State of Union address.

It has been five years since President Obama used his State of the Union address to rebuke the Supreme Court for its Citizens United decision. Six members of the court were in the audience, and some did not enjoy the experience.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. objected to Mr. Obama’s characterization of the decision, mouthing that it was “not true.” He has not been back since.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. called the event an uncomfortable “political pep rally.”

“The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court, according to the requirements of protocol, has to sit there expressionless, I think, is very troubling,” he told a law school audience in 2010.

But Chief Justice Roberts has kept attending. He will probably be joined this year by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Other justices are long shots. Justice Antonin Scalia has called the event “a juvenile spectacle.” Justice Clarence Thomas has said he could not abide “the catcalls, the whooping and hollering and under-the-breath comments.”

Mr. Obama may want to tread lightly this year. His health care law survived its last encounter with the Supreme Court by the narrowest of margins in 2012, and the court is set to hear a fresh and potent challenge to the administration’s interpretation of the law on March 4.

— ADAM LIPTAK

Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative group, is urging viewers to play its State of the Union bingo game by checking off terms and phrases that President Obama is likely to use frequently in his address.

The group, which is led by Grover Norquist, also provides a helpful guide to “translate” some of Mr. Obama’s potential language. For instance, words such as “investment,” “balanced,” “fair share” and “inequality” all mean tax increases.

Not to be outdone, Organizing for Action, which supports Mr. Obama, started a climate denier bingo game. The “Spot the Denier” cards encourage viewers to keep an eye out for members of Congress who question the science behind climate change.

— ALAN RAPPEPORT

Look for me in red w/ my DC statehood pin at #SOTU, but not in photo-grabbing aisle seats Members scramble for like 5-year-olds.

— Eleanor H. Norton (@EleanorNorton) 20 Jan 15

This was supposed to be the year when President Obama could finally say in the State of the Union speech that he had ended two wars during his tenure. Except one battleground — Afghanistan — remains, with close to 10,000 American troops staying in the country to advise and assist the the Afghan military.

And the other battleground — Iraq — heated up again in 2014 with the advance of the Islamic State, drawing some 3,000 American troops back to the country they left in 2011.

It will be interesting to see how Mr. Obama, who is well aware that the American public’s tolerance for military adventurism overseas remains low, describes the state of play in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And how will the president describe the fight in Syria? He’s probably not going to call again for President Bashar al-Assad to resign; those days seem to be gone now that the Islamic State appears to have replaced Mr. Assad as America’s public enemy No. 1 in Syria.

Finally, Mr. Obama has made a lot of headway in the past three months to empty the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, transferring 33 detainees and bringing the prison population there to 122 from 680 in 2003. Republican senators, including Senator John McCain, responded last week by proposing legislation that would stop those transfers. Tuesday night’s address gives Mr. Obama the perfect platform to launch a counteroffensive.

— HELENE COOPER

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A worker polished stanchions in Statuary Hall before the State of the Union address.

The middle class.

That’s a brief preview of what you can expect to hear from President Obama’s State of the Union address. Mr. Obama no longer is trying to persuade Congress to pass ambitious bills; he has come to learn that goal isn’t realistic in today’s polarized country. He is no longer trying to convince Americans that the financial crisis is over and that the economy is improving; Americans increasingly agree with him on that score.

He is instead acknowledging the single largest force in politics today – and implicitly admitting that he has not succeeded in reversing it: The American middle class is not receiving many of the fruits of the economy’s growth. White House officials see three main potential benefits from focusing on the middle class, and I examine them in a longer post for The Upshot.

— DAVID LEONHARDT

Though the president’s State of the Union guests usually get the most attention, members of Congress also get tickets that they can distribute. Senator Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois, gave one of his to Jackson Cunningham, a 12-year-old whom Mr. Kirk calls “my personal hero.”

In February 2011, Jackson, then 8, suffered a stroke while playing in his backyard. He had half of his skull removed during surgery. But he was determined to rejoin his classmates and lead a normal life. When asked by a doctor what he wanted out of rehab, Jackson responded, “I want it all back.”

He shared that attitude with Mr. Kirk while the senator was recovering from a stroke he suffered in 2012.

It was Jackson who heard of Mr. Kirk’s stroke and sent him a letter after a suggestion from his grandmother. The 9-year-old boy offered some advice to a sitting United States senator: “Do not give up on yourself. All the hard work is worth it.”

The letter spawned a quick friendship – Mr. Kirk and Jackson exchanged many letters, some of which were released last year by Mr. Kirk’s office.

In that first letter, Jackson told Mr. Kirk that President Obama once visited his hospital, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. His said his father saw the president get out of the car from his hospital window.

Today, Mr. Kirk is bringing Jackson to see President Obama himself.

— NICK CORASANITI

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Looking for real-life anecdotes to make the case for the proposals in his State of the Union address, President Obama turned to his own mailbox.

Eight of the guests who will sit in the House chamber as guests of the White House during Tuesday’s prime-time speech wrote letters that made their way to Mr. Obama’s desk, making them living, breathing examples of the policies he will discuss.

There is Rebekah Erler, a 36-year-old working mother who wrote to the president last March about the financial challenges she was facing while raising her young family. Ms. Erler, who introduced the president when he visited her hometown, Minneapolis, last June, has a story tailor-made for Mr. Obama’s new economic initiatives, including proposals to make community college free and to provide larger tax credits for child care and education and a new credit for families with two working spouses.

Ana Zamora of Dallas, another letter-writer, is a so-called Dreamer – brought to the United States illegally as a child by her parents – allowed to stay in the country and work through Mr. Obama’s 2012 executive action. Ms. Zamora’s parents, who have other children born in the United States, will be eligible for the president’s more recent unilateral move in November to extend such benefits to the parents of American citizens.

Not all of the letter-writing guests wrote directly to the president. Malik Bryant, 13, meant his letter for Santa Claus, whom he asked to bring him “safety” as his holiday gift. But a nonprofit organization redirected the letter to the White House, where the president saw and responded to it.

The president receives 10 letters each day in his briefing materials, hand-selected by his staff from the tens of thousands that come to the White House daily on paper and by email and fax.

The eight letter-writers are among 22 guests the White House has announced will sit with Michelle Obama in her box during the speech. Others include Alan P. Gross, the American released last month after five years of captivity in Cuba, and Scott Kelly, an astronaut scheduled to leave soon for a year aboard the International Space Station.

— JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS