Ashley Lopez reports “Democrats plan a new investment in winning rural voters, who’ve fled the party” at npr.org: “Democrats are announcing a new investment to win over voters in rural areas — where the party has suffered deep losses in recent elections — in their effort to win a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives next year…This is the first time, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee says, that it’s had a program specifically dedicated to engaging rural voters…Suzan DelBene, who chairs the DCCC and represents Washington’s 1st Congressional District, said Democrats see an opportunity to engage rural voters as President Trump’s economic agenda, particularly tariffs, becomes less popular…She said rural voters see the “damage” being done by GOP policies that have led to “costs going up, health care being gutted,” and Democrats can provide an alternative…”When we look at the swing districts across the country, the districts that are going to determine the majority in the House of Representatives, we know that rural voters are key in those districts,” DelBene said…Anthony Flaccavento, co-founder and executive director of the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative, said economic frustration among most voters could provide an opening for Democrats, and that rural voters tend to align with economically populist policies…”It’s very clear to us that a progressive, populist economic stance is what is needed,” he said. “It’s what is needed in substance. Like we need the anti-monopolies, antitrust, pro-union-and-investment-in-infrastructure-type things that go with that.” More here.

At Jacobin.com, Meagan Day argues that “Medicare for All Disappeared. Its Popularity Didn’t,” and writes: “In early 2020, all roads in American politics led to Medicare for All. The policy demand, shorthand for a universal, tax-funded, single-payer health insurance plan, began its ascent four years prior when it was elevated by Bernie Sanders’s first presidential campaign. Over the intervening years, its popularity soared, and debate became intense. By the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, everyone had an opinion, and where you stood seemed to say everything about your core values and fundamental worldview…For the rising economic populist left, Medicare for All was the flagship demand — the purest expression of the Sanders movement’s ethos, promising to mobilize ordinary working-class people en masse, across lines of political and demographic difference, in a necessary challenge to capitalist domination and exploitation. The Medicare for All army came equipped with political arguments, economic projections, policy papers, physicians’ opinions, patient testimonies, and regiments of self-taught true believers ready to talk through the details with anyone who would listen. As the pressure mounted, centrists squirmed in their seats, conservatives clutched their pearls, and corporations benefiting from the private health insurance status quo commenced a lobbyist hiring spree, affirming with their dollars how seriously they took the threat…Then, in mid-2020, poof. The demand for Medicare for All evaporated. Sanders’s primary loss and Joe Biden’s presidential victory squashed the momentum. By 2021, with the policy’s main champion defeated and an avowed opponent in the White House, the proposal migrated almost overnight from the center of the primary debate to the margins of respectable Democratic Party discourse. Even a public option, which Biden had promised to champion as a compromise, disappeared from discussion without a trace. When the Republicans, under newly reelected Donald Trump, set out inevitably to destroy Biden’s health care legacy, they were reduced to ripping up enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies — a distant fourth cousin to the ambitious and once-mighty Medicare for All.”

Day continues, “Still, it’s important to decouple the demand’s short-term political prospects from its actual popularity among the electorate. And on this point, a new poll from Data for Progress offers some clarity. In a survey of 1,207 likely voters conducted November 14–17, 2025, Data for Progress found that 65 percent of voters support a Medicare for All system — described as a “national health insurance program . . . that would cover all Americans and replace most private health insurance plans.” That number includes 78 percent of Democrats, 71 percent of independents, and 49 percent of Republicans…Data for Progress also tested what happens when respondents are given more information about what Medicare for All entails. After being told the policy would “eliminate most private insurance plans and replace premiums with higher taxes, while guaranteeing health coverage for everyone and eliminating most out-of-pocket costs like copays and deductibles,” 63 percent of voters still expressed support, including 64 percent of independents and a slight plurality of Republicans…To further gauge the durability of Medicare for All’s political appeal, the pollsters presented respondents with arguments from both sides: supporters emphasizing that the policy would ensure everyone can receive the care they need and save families money, opponents countering that it would raise taxes and give the government too much control over health care. Even after hearing these competing messages, 58 percent of voters said they still support Medicare for All. That’s a seven-point drop from the initial question — a real drop but a modest one, suggesting that the support is resilient under rhetorical fire.”

Day concludes, “The cost of living is a dominant and pressing concern for American voters, and health care sits near the center of that anxiety. Health care costs keep climbing, vastly outpacing wage growth. Uninsurance and underinsurance are still rampant. Tens of millions of US adults carry medical debt, often considered the most common factor in personal bankruptcy. Millions of Americans continue to delay or forgocare because they cannot afford it. With enhanced ACA subsidies set to expire at the end of this year, enrollees are already facing sticker shock — some looking at premium increases of 50 percent or more for 2026. The dysfunction is chronic and worsening, and no amount of technocratic tinkering will make it go away…Health care costs remain a major source of hardship in American life and will therefore no doubt remain a source of tension in American politics. If Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City’s mayoral election is any indication, the Sanders-inspired economic left has plenty of runway, which means the fight over Medicare for All within the Democratic Party is likely to reignite at some point. Given that the party has been hemorrhaging working-class voters as it struggles to articulate a positive political vision that ordinary people can connect to, the Democratic establishment would do well not to undermine it so mercilessly next time.” If Day is right, ‘Medicare for All’ is a slogan that can give Democrats some added traction heading into the 2026 midterm elections, now less than a year away. If the proposal should falter in congress, however, Medicare for all catastrophic illnesses, based on the principle that no American will lose their home or retirement savings as a result of medical bills, could be a bridge reform that sets the stage for Medicare for All. More here.