WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will promote their health care agenda Tuesday in North Carolina, a battleground that Democrats hope to turn in their favor after falling short to Donald Trump in the last two presidential elections.
Fourteen years after President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, the White House still views health care as a winning issue during a campaign in which Biden has at times found himself on the defensive on immigration or the economy. Republicans have opposed Biden’s initiatives to lower medical costs, and they have seized opportunities to restrict abortion rights after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
“That’s the split screen of healthcare that you’ll see on a clear screen,” said Anita Dunn, a senior consultant. “President Biden, Vice President Harris and Democrats want to expand access, make health care more affordable for all and defend reproductive freedom. Republicans want to undermine health care, raise prices and chip away at basic reproductive freedoms even more than they have already been compromised.”
North Carolina is Biden’s latest stop in his tour of battleground states after his State of the Union address earlier this month, which kicked off a frenzied travel schedule as the Democratic president makes his case for a second term in a likely rematch with Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. .
The state is also a health care success story for the president. The American Rescue Plan, a pandemic recovery measure signed by Biden, included financial incentives for states to expand Medicaid coverage for low-income residents. Democrat Roy Cooper, governor of North Carolina, was able to use the money, which amounted to $1.8 billion, to convince Republican lawmakers to agree to his plan. More than 600,000 residents are expected to be eligible.
Biden and Harris’ visit comes on the same day the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments in a case over access to mifepristone, a commonly used abortion pill. A possible ruling could further restrict access to abortion.
The White House has tried to make mifepristone more available as one of the few options to protect women’s ability to end their pregnancies.
“We will continue to fight against unprecedented attacks on women’s freedom to make their own health decisions,” said press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
After speaking about health care in Raleigh, Biden and Harris will also attend a fundraiser in the city. They have built a significant cash advantage over Trump, with $155 million in cash at the end of the first quarter of the year. Trump had $37 million.
Biden’s approval ratings on health care are among his highest in a range of areas, but he remains underwater there too. According to a February poll by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 42% of American adults approve of Biden’s handling of health care, while 55% disapprove.
KFF, a health policy research firm, conducted its own poll in November and found that 59% of American adults trust the Democratic Party to do a better job addressing health care affordability. Only 39% said the same about Republicans. There was a similar gap in trust when it came to access to mental health care, the cost of prescription drugs and the future of the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Medicaid.
“I’m someone who believes that good policy is good politics, and that when people feel like there are policies that help and benefit them in their communities, then you now have loyal supporters,” said Maryland Governor Wes Moore. a democrat.
Moore said he sympathized with voters who didn’t believe Biden had had a significant impact on issues like health care, but he highlighted the administration’s record on policies like lowering prescription drug prices and limiting the cost of insulin.
“Nothing happens by accident, that’s because you have leaders who prioritize it,” he said.
Trump has never detailed his health care proposals, despite campaigning since 2016 on a promise to end the Affordable Care Act and replace it with something else.
“The costs of Obamacare are out of control, and besides, it’s not good health care. I am seriously looking at alternatives,” he wrote in a post on his Truth Social site in November.
Healthcare, however, has not been a prominent issue in his 2024 campaign, as Trump focuses instead on immigration, inflation and the wars in Europe and the Middle East.
Polls show a tight race between Biden and Trump this year, and Democrats are hoping to create a new potential path to victory in North Carolina.
Although Democrats have failed to win a U.S. Senate seat or a presidential race since 2008, Trump defeated Biden in North Carolina in 2020 by just 1.3 percentage points. The White House has repeatedly pointed to federal infusions of funds for transportation, rural broadband and other initiatives. while top government officials are sent to the state.
Democrats also want to exploit what they see as weaknesses among Republican candidates for statewide office. For example, the party’s nominees for governor and state schools superintendent, Mark Robinson and Michele Morrow, have a history of inflammatory comments.
“We see a Republican slate at the statewide level filled with MAGA extremists, which will ultimately hurt Republicans’ chances of winning the state again,” said Sen. Jay Chaudhuri of Raleigh, the Democratic whip. room, Monday. in an interview. “As we get closer to November, I think independents who are critical to winning the state will be able to see just how extreme the Republican ticket is from top to bottom.”
Democrats are hoping that unaffiliated voters, the largest category in the state, will cool off to Trump, based in part on concerns that his election along with Robinson and Morrow could prompt businesses to move to a state currently experiencing an economic boom going through.
“It’s clear that Republicans have nominated a slew of candidates who want to throw us right back into the culture wars,” Cooper, the Democratic governor, said last week. “And Donald Trump is on top of that, driving the train on this.”
___
Associated Press writers Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, Jill Colvin in New York, and Darlene Superville, Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and Matt Brown in Washington contributed to this report.
