What Went Down At The December Democratic Primary Debate

Buttigieg sets himself apart from some of the other candidates by saying that college should be free for lower-income Americans but not for everyone. As former FiveThirtyEighter Ben Casselman wrote today, when you give people more options in a survey, that’s actually a reasonably popular position:

I mean, Micah, the thing about health care is that it doesn’t necessarily make a ton of sense to put it on a pedestal. Democrats’ opportunities to pass anything ambitious are going to be limited, with what would either be a narrow or non-existent majority in the Senate. It’s sort of served as a proxy for all other sorts of issues. But it’s also an issue where Sanders really outflanked the other liberals by getting them all to sign up for his health care plan! So by luck or design, it’s something that’s turned out really well for him. Will that change? I don’t know. Polls do show that voters care about health care a lot.

Yes, Nathaniel, Steyer has been in favor of a wealth tax for a while. He recently wrote an op-ed telling Bloomberg to support a wealth tax or get out of the race. Kind of wonder if he should have dwelled on that for longer, since it does run counter to the billionaire stereotype and might have caught people’s attention.