Matt Rourke/AP Photo
A Biden victory in November requires him to do better with the third of the electorate that’s younger than halfway through middle age.
Joe Biden may be sweeping the Democratic primaries, but there’s one issue that’s way ahead of him, winning overwhelming majority support in every single state that’s voted so far (at least, every state that’s been exit-polled, which is all but a handful of small ones).
That issue, believe it or not, is the dreaded Medicare for All. Pollsters for the networks have consistently asked voters if they would support a government health care system instead of private insurance. Among voters in the four states that were exit-polled yesterday (the poll skipped Idaho and North Dakota), 57 percent of those in Michigan went for the government option, 59 percent did so in Missouri, 62 percent in Mississippi, and 64 percent in Washington. That doesn’t necessarily translate into majority support in the country—Republicans vote, too—but considering the slings and arrows Medicare for All took from the media and even Democratic candidates this cycle, it’s a solid base from which to grow.
Unhappily for the senator from Vermont, support for his signature program isn’t translating into support for him. A growing plurality—growing into a majority as the candidate field has narrowed—clearly believes that Joe Biden has a better chance than Bernie Sanders of replacing Donald Trump. We must assume that they hope a President Biden gets us closer to universal health care, but even if they prefer Bernie’s plan, they must also think he’s too divisive, too cantankerous, and too vulnerable to make it all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania.
Yesterday’s primaries showed no diminution of the age gap that defines today’s Democratic Party.
Yesterday’s primaries showed no diminution of the age gap that defines today’s Democratic Party. Biden won just 32 percent of voters under 45 in Missouri, 32 percent in Michigan, and 16 percent in Washington. (Please note that these percentages aren’t just for voters under 30, but voters under 45.) For his part, Sanders had comparably low numbers among their elders, who vote in greater numbers. As the economy has been particularly unrewarding to young Americans, it’s not surprising that Sanders also outpaced Biden among voters with annual incomes below $50,000.
Last night, the talking heads on CNN and MSNBC began, however belatedly, to realize that a Biden victory in November requires him to do better with the third of the electorate that’s younger than halfway through middle age. The Biden campaign, all agreed, had to reach out to Bernie and his backers. Biden, they said, needs to feel their pain, express suitable empathy, and make room for some prominent Sanders-istas. When Biden himself spoke last night, he commended Bernie and his supporters for their passion and asserted, optimistically, that “we share a common goal.”
If Joe’s going to win, however, mere Biden-esque empathy won’t do the trick. It’s time for Biden, as I’ve been writing since his South Carolina resurrection, to adopt Sanders’s and Elizabeth Warren’s proposal to make public colleges and universities tuition-free (Biden only supports making two-year community colleges tuition-free, a proposal that Barack Obama repeatedly made when he was president, though he couldn’t get it through the Republican Congress). It’s also time for Biden to join Sanders and Warren in calling for the cancellation of student debt.
Indeed, as the coronavirus recession descends upon us, Biden, and the Democrats generally, are obliged to come up with policies that will prop up consumer spending, lest the coming recession turn into a depression. Freeing up young Americans from more than $1.5 trillion in debt would be a huge boost to the purchasing power of an entire generation, at the very moment when the nation needs them to spend. That such a policy would also strengthen Biden in the very constituency where he most needs strengthening should make it a most compelling two-fer for the Democrats’ all-but-presumptive nominee.
Quite properly, Biden began his victory speech in front of staff in Philadelphia last night with a reference to COVID-19, and how it had compelled him to cancel his election night rally in Cleveland. As there was no crowd of cheering supporters, he spoke in sober tones about the pandemic and the presidency. “There’s so much fear in the country and across the world now,” he said, that “we need presidential leadership that’s honest, trusted, truthful, and steady. I will strive to give this nation that kind of leadership every day.”
It was a good speech. First, because Biden is better when he speaks than when he shouts; second, because Biden is better with a prepared text than when he’s winging it; and third, because the coronavirus has underscored our need for a normal, rational, and, when possible, reassuring president. Biden demonstrated last night how comfortably he could settle into that role.
Whatever fears the Trump campaign hopes to gin up about the nothing-burger of Hunter Biden and Ukraine absolutely pale alongside the real fears Americans are experiencing about a pandemic without a cure. If I were a Trump strategist, I would not feel good about the last several weeks—the disease, the economy, and the emergence of a Democratic candidate who seems to have a calming effect on people.
The Democrats will need a lot more than that, of course. Now is the time, as Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro has long advocated, for both their congressional delegation and their standard-bearer-to-be to demand universal paid sick leave. They should add to that list a major expansion of affordable medical care. Tuesday’s New York Times reported that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will introduce a bill that increases Affordable Care Act subsidies, but does not create a public option through which people could buy into Medicare, much less any provision that would lower Medicare eligibility to, say, 55, or expand the list of treatments (like vision and dental care) that Medicare currently doesn’t cover. That’s a huge mistake—at odds not only with the proposal of almost every presidential candidate to create a public option, and with the health care preferences of exit-polled Democrats in every state, but also missing the opportunity to expand health coverage at a moment when the general public wants it expanded.
In short, it’s a moment when Biden, Pelosi, and the entire party have a rare opportunity to really make health care more of a right and less of a privilege, to make our economy a bit less unequal, and to diminish the Democrats’ age rift that threatens the party’s prospects in November. They can embrace some Bernie-ish ideas without having to embrace Bernie. What are they waiting for?
