Dem Pollster Says Party Should Do More To Sell Health Care Message

Battleground-state voters across the political spectrum say the cost of their health care has skyrocketed this year. They’re avoiding the doctor because they can’t afford the out-of-pocket expenses. They feel forced to choose between paying their insurance or their rent — and they’re choosing rent.

It’s everything Democrats warned would happen when Republicans cut Medicaid and let Obamacare subsidies lapse last year. But those same voters aren’t pinning the blame on Republicans alone.

Those are among the findings from a pair of focus groups that Democratic-aligned firm Navigator Research conducted last week with people who have either experienced premium increases or have gone uninsured.

The voters’ responses show that Democrats, who are hammering President Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers over soaring health care costs as a central part of their midterm strategy, still have some work to do to land their message.

“Democrats need to tell a bigger story and connect the dots — that the Democrats were the party that fought for the ACA and have been fighting to protect the ACA as Republicans, have been going after it almost like a death by 1,000 paper cuts,” said Melissa Toufanian, managing director at Navigator.

Margie Omero, a principal at Democratic polling firm GBAO, which worked with Navigator on the focus groups, said Democrats “need to be aggressive” in outlining the repercussions of Republicans’ health care cuts. “Just because you’ve said something 10 times doesn’t mean you don’t need to say it 90 more times.”

Democrats leveraged Republicans’ efforts to undo Obamacare into sweeping wins in the 2018 midterms.

Those behind the focus groups believe Democrats can do it again in 2026 — so long as they focus less on the specific policy fights and more on the bigger picture that Republicans are driving up costs all around.

“Are you going to pay for food or rent? Or are you going to pay for health care? That wasn't the conversation in 2018,” Toufanian said. Democrats, she added, have to make it so they’re “not communicating in a narrow way on extending the subsidies or just protecting the ACA, that we’re thinking about the entire U.S. health care system and connecting the dots on why is care so expensive, why is it inaccessible and how can we make it better?”

Polling shows voters are feeling the pinch of rising insurance costs, and that they trust Democrats more than Republicans to handle it. A recent Gallup survey found access to affordable health care was voters’ top domestic concern. One-fifth of respondents in an April POLITICO Poll said health care was too hard to access, while health insurance ranked among the top four most challenging things for people to afford, under grocery and housing costs and utility bills.

The focus groups put those concerns on full display. An independent in Michigan who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 said the price of her plan through the ACA Marketplace had quadrupled without the subsidies and lamented the huge expense. A Georgia independent who didn’t vote in 2024 said she’s keeping costs down by avoiding the doctor unless absolutely necessary.

A Republican Trump voter from North Carolina who is recently uninsured said she chose food and rent over health care — and worries what that will cost her every time she coughs. And a Republican Trump voter from Arizona warned the Medicaid cuts were a bad idea.

Some of the voters were aware the GOP-controlled Congress let the enhanced Obamacare subsidies lapse, and that Democrats had tried to stop it. And some of them faulted Republicans for the rising costs that followed.

But several said they felt let down by both parties as they struggled to navigate a labyrinthine and expensive health care system. They also pointed fingers at insurance companies and Big Pharma for driving up prices.

“It’s a nice reality check for us that are based in D.C. to understand that people are not living and breathing this every day, even with how intense the fight has been over the last six months or year,” Toufanian said.