Tomorrow night, President Donald Trump will give his first official State Of The Union speech. The White House is leaking that his speech will be the first where he reaches out in an attempt to unify the country and offer bipartisan leadership to Congress. That is a pretty tall order for this particular president, for obvious reasons. But even if he manages to deliver an impressive speech, it's not likely to change anything afterwards. At least not in the way of actual bipartisan legislation, since Democrats are not likely to strike such deals right before a midterm election that could put them in a much better bargaining position afterwards.

Partisan politics can get petty at times, and no one exemplifies the pettiness of politics more than Trump. To say that he's already poisoned the bipartisan well is nothing short of understatement. While Democrats have struck deals with Trump, the most notable were the deals which were later (sometimes almost immediately) blown up by Trump's mercurial shifts in what he wants, what he thought he agreed to, and what he thinks his base really wants of him. As Chuck Schumer pointed out, it's like trying to negotiate with Jell-O. There simply is no solidity, merely wobble. This lessens the chances for any sort of big bipartisan deal being struck in Congress any time soon, with the possible exception of the ones facing imminent deadlines (the budget, the debt ceiling, and the DACA kids). But Trump, from the State Of The Union leaks so far, is going to set his sights even higher.

Trump himself, if reports are true, thinks he missed an opportunity to strike an early bipartisan deal on infrastructure. He may well be right about that, but at this point it may also be too late for him to do anything about it. Consider the fact that it took him (and his White House) an entire year to learn even the rudiments of how legislative negotiating is supposed to happen. Last week -- long after the shutdown had happened over the same issue -- the Trump White House finally released their starting bid in the negotiations over DACA and immigration. This was really the first time such a list had existed -- on any issue.

Throughout all the wasted months when Trump was urging Congress to repeal Obamacare, the White House never had a solid list of what it wanted to see in any replacement. Trump swore up and down on the campaign trail that he had a big, beautiful plan which would cover everyone better and cheaper, but when it came time to reveal the plan, Trump couldn't. Not only did he never have such a plan in the first place, he couldn't even come up with one in the midst of all the negotiations over what should be in a Republican healthcare plan.

On his one legislative achievement to date -- tax cuts -- again, Trump wasn't that involved with the negotiations at all. He occasionally tossed out half-baked ideas, but never produced a list of his own priorities for Congress to consider. The bill eventually passed, but the White House was only peripherally involved in the negotiations (this, of course, didn't stop Trump from claiming all the credit afterwards).

It took until the DACA debate -- over a full year into his presidency -- before the Trump White House even came up with a priorities list for a piece of legislation. So the learning curve has been pretty steep. Just before the shutdown happened, Mitch McConnell showed his frustration on the floor of the Senate by saying he had no idea what Trump wanted or would agree to on DACA. This may have been what finally spurred the White House to come up with an actual position on an issue, in fact.

Democrats have every reason to be wary of Trump as a negotiating partner. His childish insults on Twitter certainly don't help matters much, either. But even ignoring the playground name-calling, Democrats still don't have much reason to even attempt to work with Trump at this point, on anything that doesn't have an explicit deadline. There will be enough problems getting a DACA bill and the budget worked out, and that's going to consume all of February (if not most of March, as well).

We are a little more than nine months away from the midterm elections, and Democrats are already feeling a wind at their backs. Resistance to Trump has grown and shows no signs of abating. This may in fact be one of the biggest reasons why Trump would even attempt any sort of bipartisan outreach -- or even attempt lip-service towards bipartisanship in a single speech. But even if he gives the speech of his life tomorrow night, there is no guarantee that he'll follow through on any of it. Even if he is sincere, Congress isn't going to have time or energy to put towards any of his new proposals until springtime. Which puts us that much closer to election season.

Republicans are (quite rightly) getting more and more anxious about their prospects in the midterms, by the day. However, for them this means they'll likely be less inclined to strike deals with Democrats, since the only route to avoiding a blowout will be to enthuse their base enough that they turn out in large numbers. Cutting deals with Democrats is not the way to do this, to state the obvious.

Democrats are normally more predisposed to striking bipartisan deals, but this time around they've got two big reasons not to do so. When a lot of the energy on their side is directed squarely against Trump and everything he stands for, why would Democrats want to give him a victory to crow about just before an election? That would only depress the Democrats' base voters, perhaps so much that they wouldn't turn out in the numbers that will be necessary to generate a wave election.

The second big reason Democrats have for keeping Trump at arm's length is the fact that they could strike a much stronger deal if the election goes their way. Even if the Democrats only take back the House, that means that Nancy Pelosi will determine what is in the bills that get passed there. Rather than just being a voice crying for the Democratic agenda in the wilderness of the House minority, she could instead be the chief negotiator for that agenda with the White House if she regains the speaker's gavel. Why would Democrats negotiate a bipartisan infrastructure bill now, when they could be in a much stronger position to do so after the midterms? If the wave crests high enough, they could even be in charge of the Senate as well, relegating the Republicans in Congress to the minority position in any negotiations.

If Trump and the White House were offering a really sweet deal on infrastructure, this might be politically harder for Democrats to ignore. They'd be seen as putting party before country if they were turning down a really good offer just to gain a political advantage. But from all reports, that's not what they're going to get from Trump. While he promised in his campaign to spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure (indeed, it was one of his signature issues), it is now being reported that he's going to only commit to $200 billion in federal spending, and the rest of that trillion dollars is supposed to magically appear out of thin air, somehow. That is not a sweet deal for Democrats, or for the country as a whole. So refusing such a deal isn't going to hurt Democrats politically at all.

Next January, if Democrats do retake the House, Nancy Pelosi could pass a real trillion-dollar infrastructure bill and, by doing so, dare Trump to accept the fulfillment one of his own campaign promises. If the White House position is to offer $200 billion, then perhaps a deal could be reached in the middle (say, $600 billion in new federal infrastructure money). But it's doubtful that Trump would strike such a deal before the election, since the Democrats wouldn't be in nearly as strong a position to negotiate it.

So while Trump may indeed give a speech which attempts to reach across the aisle in Congress tomorrow night, it probably won't lead to any major legislation this year. Even before considering the electoral politics of such a deal, Trump has already poisoned the well by going back on his word so many times already. At this point, nobody -- not even his own fellow Republicans in Congress -- trusts that a Trump deal is going to last even a few hours. You may leave the Oval Office thinking you've got a solid commitment, but hours later Trump is petulantly tweeting the exact opposite, complete with playground insults. There are already major battles waiting in the wings which will consume the next few months, and even if DACA and the budget do get eventually hammered out there may be little trust or bipartisan willpower afterwards.

Because this Congress is so incapable of doing two things at once, pretty much any new proposal Trump unveils tomorrow night isn't even going to get discussed in Congress until late March (at the earliest). At that point, the election will be a little over seven months away. Trump, obviously, would love a big legislative victory for the election campaign, but there is no reason Democrats should give him one. If the election goes their way, they'll be in a much better position to talk about bipartisanship next year. No speech, no matter how well delivered, is going to change that basic dynamic.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant