The last time Joe Biden was in New Hampshire, he was a no-show at his own, sad party: After a trouncing in the state's first-in-the-nation primary in 2020, he hopped a flight to South Carolina in the hopes of breathing new life into his campaign – which it did.

A little over a year later, on Tuesday, he returned to New Hampshire as the 46th President of the United States, eager to talk up his new $1 trillion infrastructure deal and what all that money can do for Americans.

The president spoke Tuesday as it lightly snowed, with the backdrop of a rusted bridge that carries state Route 175 over the Pemigewasset River. Built in 1939, the bridge has been on the state's "red list" since 2014 because of its poor condition. Another bridge over the river was added in 2018. 

"This may not seem like a big bridge, but it saves lives and solves problems," he said. "Businesses depend on it, like the local propane company, or the sand and gravel company or logging trucks."

Biden said there were 215 bridges in the state of New Hampshire deemed structurally unsafe.

"When you see these projects starting your hometowns, I want you to feel what I feel: pride. Pride of what we can do together as the United States of America," he said of the various improvements and sectors the infrastructure law will begin to fund.

"Clean water, access to the internet, rebuilding bridges and everything in this bill matters to individual lives of real people. This is not something abstract," he told the people of New Hampshire.

Biden, down in the polls, hopes to use the successful deal to shift the political winds in his direction with new momentum for his broader $1.85 trillion social spending package before Congress.

The president signed the infrastructure bill into law on Monday at a splashy bipartisan ceremony for hundreds on the White House South Lawn, where lawmakers and union workers cheered and clapped.

"America is moving again and your life is going to change for the better," Biden promised Americans on Monday. 

The president and members of his Cabinet are moving, too — spreading out around the country to showcase the package. Biden himself has stops Tuesday in Woodstock, New Hampshire, and Wednesday in Detroit to promote the new law as a source of jobs and repairs for aging roads, bridges, pipes and ports while also helping to ease inflation and supply chain woes. 

On Tuesday, the president once again said the infrastructure law, which he calls a "blue-collar, blueprint" to improve the country, will aim to boost the lower and middle class.

"The backbone of this nation has been hollowed out: hardworking, middle class folks," Biden said on the NH 175 bridge. 

The visit kicks off a nationwide tour by Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and member of the Cabinet to sell the bill directly to the American people, according to an administration official.

"As he goes around the country, he's really going to dig into how these issues will impact people's everyday lives, what they talk about at their kitchen tables," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.

"Officials will travel [to] red states, blue states, big cities, small towns, rural areas, Tribal communities, and more to highlight how the President forged consensus to demonstrate how democracies can deliver real results for their people," the White House official said. "Officials will underscore what the law means in tangible terms from rebuilding roads and bridges, modernizing public transit, expanding access to clean drinking water, ensuring every American has high-speed internet,  building a national network of EV charging stations, and more."

The outreach will also include "local and national TV" appearances, including "African American and Spanish-language media outlets, and digital channels" and "easy-to-understand explainers and content."

The president, whose poll numbers continued to drop even after passage of the bill, is pleading for patience from Americans exhausted by the pandemic and frightened by rising inflation.

Biden defeated Donald Trump by 7 percentage points in New Hampshire in the 2020 election, but his popularity has sagged in the state. In a University of New Hampshire Survey Center Granite State Poll last month, his overall favorable rating was 34%, with 53% having an unfavorable view.

New Hampshire's Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, who met Biden at the airport, sent a letter to the president Tuesday asking him to work with Congress to earmark even more infrastructure funding for the state. He also urged Biden to address supply chain issues, workforce shortages and the rising cost of construction materials.

"Ensuring that roads get built, bridges get repaired, and drinking water gets improved will be even more challenging given the economic challenges Washington seems oblivious to," Sununu said.

Under the funding formula in the bill, New Hampshire will receive $1.1 billion for federal-aid highways and $225 million for bridges, the White House said. 

The infrastructure bill overall contains $110 billion to repair aging highways, bridges and roads. According to the White House, 173,000 total miles of U.S. highways and major roads and 45,000 bridges are in poor condition. The law has almost $40 billion for bridges, the single largest dedicated bridge investment since the construction of the national highway system, according to the Biden administration.

Many of the particulars of how the money is spent will be up to state governments: Biden has named former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu as the liaison between the White House and the states to help ensure things run smoothly and to prevent waste and fraud. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.