PBS Democratic Debate: Live Coverage

Making prescription drugs more affordable is a winning issue for voters from both parties. A Kaiser Health Tracking Poll released in October found that 85 percent of democrats and 73 percent of Republicans surveyed said that the president and Congress should prioritize making sure that high-cost drugs for chronic conditions are available to people who need them. Similarly, 74 percent of Democratic and 56 percent of Republican respondents wanted “Government action to lower prescription drug prices.”

My guess is that the low-key but wonky and detail-oriented tenor of the conversation tonight is more helpful to Hillary Clinton than to Bernie Sanders. Compare the candidates’ “issues” pages on their respective websites: Clinton’s is an alphabetized laundry list of topics, while Sanders’s is prioritized, with the top two issues being income quality and free college tuition. This has been a substantive but laundry-list type of debate so far.

It’s true, as Clinton just said, that super PACs are technically independent of the campaigns they support. But in this campaign cycle, more than ever before, many of the PACs are clearly coordinating with campaigns and splitting up duties. As the Washington Post reported last year, Clinton’s campaign is coordinating with a super PAC that is supplying it with opposition research. Many Republican candidates are going even further and having the super PACs pay for television ads while they spend their money on other expenses.