Voters say healthcare should be top priority for Democrats if they win in 2020
Meanwhile, 45 percent of likely Democratic voters want the president and Congress to focus on healthcare.
Democrats hope they can win back the White House and Congress in 2020, and if they do, the message from voters is clear: Focus on healthcare.
According to a new poll from Civis Analytics, when asked what issue a hypothetical Democratic president and Congress should prioritize, 31 percent said healthcare, a significant plurality. Guns came in a relatively distant second, followed by immigration (14 percent), deficit reduction (11 percent), and climate change (6 percent).
Those numbers were among all voters. Among those who say they're likely to vote for a Democrat, the numbers become more dramatic: 45 percent of likely Democratic voters want the president and Congress to focus on healthcare. Once more, guns again came in second, this time at 25 percent. But no other issue came close. Climate change, at 7 percent, was a distant third.
Even some conservative Republicans wanted Democrats to focus on healthcare, although as a whole, Republicans were more likely to prioritize immigration (26 percent) and deficit reduction (19 percent). At 18 percent, healthcare came in third among that group.
Increasingly, Democratic healthcare reform proposals have gravitated toward a Medicare expansion approach that would all but create a single-payer healthcare system. Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has championed a Medicare-for-all, single-payer healthcare bill that has drawn high-profile Democratic co-sponsors, including Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand and Cory Booker.
