Welcome to a new Friday feature from On Politics with the latest data and analysis on the 2020 race.
Welcome to Poll Watch from On Politics. Starting this week, we're bringing you the latest data and analysis every Friday to track the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. |
Current State of the Race |
Who's Up? Who's Down? Here's the Latest. |
The dynamics of the October Democratic presidential debate suggested the race has been transformed since the summer: Elizabeth Warren was the central figure onstage, drawing the kind of fire a leading candidate usually attracts, such as from rivals Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar. Joseph R. Biden Jr. played a far more muted role, fading into the background for long stretches of time and drawing little direct criticism. |
There are good reasons for Democrats to view Ms. Warren as the most formidable figure in the race right now: She is the lone candidate combining powerful fund-raising numbers with strong organization and polling in the early primary states, and a clear upward trajectory in the national polls. Ms. Warren has gained about 20 points in our polling average since the spring and her rise appears to have accelerated in recent weeks. |
But it is too early to discount Mr. Biden as a leading candidate or to assume that his recent political challenges will doom his candidacy. He continues to have a solid advantage with moderate Democrats and African-Americans, and for the first time since July, his position has actually ticked up in our polling average, leaving him two points ahead of Ms. Warren. |
Mr. Biden's most urgent problems are about money and support in the early primary states. He is spending more money than he is taking in and finished the month of September with about $9 million in the bank, well behind Ms. Warren, Mr. Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders, and also trailing Kamala Harris. That could leave his campaign in a significant cash crunch as the race moves into its most expensive stage, when most strong candidates will be increasing their spending on advertising and on mobilizing voters in the early states. |
The next few weeks will test whether Ms. Warren can maintain her strength in the race amid intensifying criticism from her fellow Democrats, and whether any of the underdog candidates can take advantage of Mr. Biden's apparent vulnerability. Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Klobuchar could pose a significant threat to him in Iowa, as could Cory Booker and Ms. Harris, who are both hoping to use a strong finish there to make inroads with Mr. Biden's African-American supporters in South Carolina. |
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Would Voters Pay More in Taxes for Medicare for All? |
 | | Elizabeth Warren during the Democratic presidential debate.Illustration by Giovanni Russonello; Photograph by Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times |
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Senator Elizabeth Warren has surged to the front of the Democratic pack by promising "big, structural change" — including a "Medicare for all" program that would bring health insurance to all Americans and eliminate private coverage. |
But at Tuesday's presidential debate, she again refused to say whether taxes would go up in order to pay for such a program. That reticence suggests that Ms. Warren, who was an Oklahoma-born Republican decades before she became a liberal Massachusetts senator, worries about alienating voters fearful of higher taxes and bigger government. |
By contrast, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who wrote the Medicare for All bill that Ms. Warren has said she supports, openly admitted on Tuesday that taxes would go up but that any increase would be "substantially less" than what people currently pay for premiums and out-of-pocket expenses. |
Polling data show that Democrats are largely united in their willingness to pay higher taxes in exchange for a government-run health insurance system. But it is unclear if the broader electorate — which is sympathetic to Mr. Sanders's and Ms. Warren's calls for a wealth tax of the superrich — would accept a middle-class tax hike in exchange for such a system. |
A recent Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll showed that roughly 7 in 10 Democratic voters in Iowa, the first state to vote next year, said they were "comfortable" with a Medicare for all system, though about two out of every five voters in that group worried that embracing this position "could cost Democrats the election." |
In national polls, Democratic voters have overwhelmingly said they would accept higher taxes to fund a government-run health system that covers all Americans. |
A NBC/Wall Street Journal poll in July found that 72 percent of Democratic voters nationwide, largely liberals, said they would support a taxpayer-funded, single-payer health care system. Even moderate and conservative Democratic voters supported the idea, at 57 percent. Younger Democratic voters were particularly likely to back a single-payer system. |
But support was mushier across party lines, according to the poll. Just 44 percent of all American voters supported a single-payer plan funded by taxes. |
And when given a choice between Medicare for all and a public option, even Democrats remain split. |
In a July study, Pew researchers found that 4 in 5 Democrats believed it was the government's responsibility to ensure all Americans have health care. But in a follow-up question on how it should be administered, just 44 percent of all Democrats favored a Medicare for all model, while an additional 34 percent said they would like to see a public option operating alongside private insurers — the approach favored by Mr. Biden and more moderate Democrats. |
Among the general population, just over a quarter of Americans said they would choose a Medicare for all-type system, according to the Pew survey. |
Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren have made two claims central to their candidacies: that only Medicare for all would be enough to make health care affordable for every American, and that the richest Americans ought to pay far more in taxes than they currently do. |
A tax hike for the wealthy is broadly popular — especially among Democrats, but also with independents. |
President Trump's 2017 tax law — which broadly lowered taxes, but delivered the greatest benefits to wealthier Americans — has added to the view among most Americans that the federal tax system unfairly favors the rich. In a March Pew poll, 80 percent of Americans said they were bothered at least somewhat by "the feeling that some wealthy people don't pay their fair share" in taxes. |
Therefore, the message of a wealth tax could catch on with the general electorate, said John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Whether this will transform into additional support for Medicare for all remains uncertain. |
"Simply because something can be paid for with a tax increase on the wealthy doesn't necessarily make it a good idea in all Americans' eyes," he said. |
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