First lady Jill Biden has announced her list of invited guests to Thursday’s State of the Union address, offering to share her viewing box with 20 people the White House feels "personify issues or themes" that President Joe Biden will touch on in his speech.

President Biden, in the thick of a reelection campaign that is expected to place him against former President Donald Trump, will likely discuss reproductive rights, immigration, the economy, foreign policy, the economy and questions about his age.

Many of the White House’s guests are directly impacted by those topics, but more specifically represent other themes from Biden’s presidency, including his interests in cancer treatments, solutions to gun violence, civil rights, prescription drug pricing, student loan forgiveness and workforce development.

Jobs and the economy

Samantha Ervin-Upsher - Pittsburgh

Ervin-Upsher, 23, is an apprentice with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters Local 432. Ervin-Upsher met the First Lady during a 2023 visit to Pennsylvania to highlight the Investing in America Workforce Hub in Pittsburgh, which seeks to build career pathways through high schools, community colleges, and unions to jobs.

Shawn Fain - Detroit

Fain is the current President of the United Auto Workers. After strikes shutting down manufacturing plants across the country, the UAW won significant pay increases and benefits and influenced non-union automakers to announce double digit pay raises for U.S. workers, which the administration says is evidence that when unions do well, all workers do well. 

Mayor Garnett L. Johnson - Augusta, Georgia

Johnson is the Mayor of the City of Augusta, Georgia. In 2023, Augusta was designated by the White House as one of five "Investing in America Workforce Hubs," where the federal government is spending to develop the local workforce.

Natalie King - Detroit

King is the founder and CEO of Dunamis Charge, an electric vehicle charger manufacturing company employing more than 135 workers. The company is on track to manufacture 400,000 electric vehicle chargers by 2025.

Dawn Simms - Davis Junction, Illinois

Simms is a member of United Auto Workers Local 126 and third-generation autoworker on the Belvidere, Illinois assembly line. The UAW-Big Three contract secured with Stellantis reopened the plant in Belvidere and saved jobs, stabilizing her family.

Rashawn Spivey - Milwaukee

Spivey is the founder and owner of Hero Plumbing in Milwaukee and a member of Plumbers Local 75. Spivey and his team have replaced more than 825 toxic lead pipes, primarily at local daycare centers, backed with funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the American Rescue Plan.

Reproductive rights

Latorya Beasley - Birmingham, Alabama

Beasley and her husband had their first child through in vitro fertilization in 2022 and were in the process of expanding their family through another round of IVF when her embryo transfer was abruptly canceled as a result of the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision ruling that fertilized embryos have the same rights as children. 

Kate Cox - Dallas

Cox, a mother of two, is one of the first women in 50 years to have to turn to the courts to ask permission to receive the abortion that her doctor recommended. She was ultimately forced to travel out of state for care that she would have been able to receive if Roe v. Wade was still in effect. 

Public health

Kris Blackley - Fort Mill, South Carolina

Blackley is an oncology nurse and the Director of Patient Navigation for the Atrium Health Levine Cancer Institute, part of Advocate Health. She has published research related to patient navigation showing improved outcomes, including decreased readmissions, increased treatment compliance, and equity in care. 

Steven Hadfield - Matthews, North Carolina

Hadfield has a rare blood cancer and is diabetic, facing high prescription drug costs: the drug that treats his cancer costs about $15,000 a month, and his insulin costs him up to $400 every month. He benefits from Inflation Reduction Act rules ensuring Medicare covers his insulin prescriptions with a $35 copay cap per month, and that his blood cancer medications are capped at about $3,500, with greater savings to come in 2025.

Justin Phillips - Indianapolis

Phillips is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Overdose Lifeline, a non-profit dedicated to reducing the stigma of substance use disorder and preventing deaths resulting from opioid and fentanyl overdose. Phillips is a special guest of Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff. 

Maria Shriver - Los Angeles

In November 2023, Shriver joined the Bidens to announce the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, an effort led by Dr. Biden and the White House Gender Policy Council to close research gaps, and improve women’s health.

Gun violence prevention

Jazmin Cazares - Uvalde, Texas

After her sister Jackie was killed in the shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, Cazares spent her senior year of high school traveling across the country and sharing Jackie’s story. She spoke alongside March for Our Lives leaders at the Texas State Capitol and testified before lawmakers to advocate for tighter background checks and extreme risk protection order laws.

Civil rights

Bettie Mae Fikes - Selma, Alabama

Fikes is an American singer and civil rights advocate who was a Bloody Sunday Foot Soldier in Selma, Alabama in 1965, the day protesters were beaten — and one murdered — during a civil rights march. Known as “The Voice of Selma,” Fikes served as a member of Selma’s Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Freedom Singers. This year’s State of the Union Address falls on the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. 

Student loan debt

Keenan Jones - Plymouth, Minnesota

Jones is a public middle school teacher. In April 2023, Jones wrote an email to President Biden to thank him for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which eliminated his remaining student loan debt after 10 years of public service.

Foreign policy

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of Sweden 

Kristersson is the Prime Minister of Sweden. Sweden is formally joining the NATO Alliance on March 7, 2024.

Infrastructure

Governor Stephen Roe Lewis - Gu-u-Ki, Sacaton, Arizona

Lewis is serving in his fourth term as governor of the Gila River Indian Community, and is credited by the administration with "revolutionizing" tribal governmental infrastructure, led to the completion of the first new schools on the reservation in over 100 years and the first solar-over-canal project in the Western Hemisphere. 

Military and public safety

Naval Commander Shelby Nikitin - Wakefield, Massachusetts

Nikitin recently completed her command tour onboard the USS Thomas Hunder, which was deployed to protect maritime shipping from illegal, dangerous, and destabilizing Houthi attacks against vessels transiting the Red Sea. Nikitin was awarded the Bronze Star. 

Kameryn Pupunu - Lahaina, Hawaii

In August 2023, as Lahaina was engulfed deadly wildfires, Pupunu saved 15 lives. However, he four of his immediate family members died as a result of the fires.

Tiffany Zoeller - Fayetteville, North Carolina

Zoeller is a military spouse and works as a medical coder at Fort Liberty’s Womack Army Medical Center. In June 2023, Zoeller introduced the President at Fort Liberty to announce the Presidential Executive Order on Advancing Economic Security for Military and Veteran Spouses, Military Caregivers, and Survivors.