Many Democrats, however, remain focused on health care, an issue that used to be a political liability but has become a cornerstone for the party in recent elections. They insist their strategy will help the party regain control of Congress in November’s election and fare better than chasing headlines about the latest outrage from the White House.

Republicans last year cut about $1 trillion over a decade from the Medicaid and refused to extend The time of COVID is over which lowers the cost of health plans under the Affordable Care Act.

Democrats filmed campaign spots outside struggling hospitals, focused on Americans facing spiking insurance premiums and shared their own health care stories.

US Sen. Georgia’s Jon Ossoff, one of the party’s most at-risk incumbents this year, is expected to highlight health care challenges at a rally Saturday in suburban Atlanta.

“This is a banger of an issue for Democrats,” said Brad Woodhouse, a longtime Democratic strategist and executive director of the advocacy group Protect Our Care. “I think it’s going to be part of every campaign, up and down the ballot.”

Republicans defend their votes as curbing health spending and curbing what they call waste, fraud and abuse. Trump recently launched a website to help patients buy prescription drugs at a discount.

“They’re working every day to make sure we’re bringing people talent,” said Joe Gruters, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

But the party, despite controlling both houses of Congress, has not been able to pass comprehensive legislation to offset the health costs of Americans.

Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist, said the issue will remain his party’s “Achilles’ heel” until its leaders come up with realistic proposals that could become law.

Public opinion on health care has not always been favorable to Democrats

Health care used to be seen as a political responsibility for nothing.

In 2010, Democrats lost their majority in the US House after President Barack Obama’s signature health policy, the ACA, was passed without a single Republican vote. In 2014, they left the US Senate a year after his administration failed to launch Healthcare.gov.

The tides rose when Trump “touched the stove” in his first term, Woodhouse said, by supporting unsuccessful efforts to repeal and replace the health care reform, known as “Obamacare,” which may have left millions of people uninsured and made it harder for those with preexisting medical conditions to get coverage.

Last year Republicans passed legislation to reduce spending on federal health and food assistance programs, largely by imposing work requirements on people receiving assistance and by shifting certain costs to states.

Republicans said it would prevent abuse of the Medicaid program, and they added a $50 billion investment in rural health to make up for the losses. Unrig Our Economy, a left-wing group, says it has funneled more than $12 million into ads criticizing Republicans on health care since the start of 2025.

Democrats saw another opportunity to win voter support last year when the enhanced ACA tax credits were headed for expiration and they forced a government shutdown over the issue. Funding has not been restored but the party believes they have gained political leverage in this year’s campaigns.

“The Republicans own it now,” said Eric Stern, a Democratic media strategist. “You better believe the Democrats are going to talk about that.”

The candidates met with hospital leaders and presented emotional stories

Stef Feldman, a Democratic consultant who is an aide to former President Joe Biden, said he’s heard from candidates that voters care about fitness “more than anything else.”

A recent poll from the health care research nonprofit KFF backs up that observation. It found that about a third of US adults are “very concerned” about the cost of health care, compared to about a quarter who feel the same about the cost of groceries, housing or utilities.

For Iowa state Senator Zach Wahls, who is running for the US Senate this year, tapping into concerns means visiting vulnerable hospitals and making rounds at pharmacies. For Rebecca Cooke, a candidate for the US House in Wisconsin, it means meetings with hospital leaders and telling personal stories, including about her father’s expensive prostate cancer drugs and the $200 jump in her own ACA premiums.

In a recent campaign video, Ossoff said health care is “a life-or-death question.” He is the only Democratic senator seeking re-election this year in a state Trump won in 2024.

At his rally Saturday, an expected speaker is Teresa Acosta, who often campaigns for Democratic candidates. He said his ACA policy, which covers himself and two teenagers, including a son with Type 1 diabetes, now costs $520 a month, seven times more than before the expanded subsidies went away.

“I think most people would agree that health care is a human right,” Acosta said. “And Republicans don’t seem to want to weaken access to it.”

ACA plans are heavily relied upon in Georgia, one of 10 states that did not expand Medicaid. As a result, advocates warn that the expiration of the expanded subsidies could leave Georgia residents insecure. Recent federal data shows about 14% fewer Georgians signed up for plans in 2026 compared to last year, though those numbers aren’t final.

Republicans say they don’t want to throw money into a ‘broken system’

US Reps. Mike Collins and Buddy Carter, two of Ossoff’s main Republican opponents, voted in January against a temporary ACA tax-credit extension that passed the House but faltered in the Senate. Both derided the ACA as the “Unaffordable Care Act,” a phrase used by Trump, and favored a narrower Republican alternative.

Carter, who works as a pharmacist, said that an extension is equivalent to “throwing more money into a broken system, full of waste, fraud and abuse, without addressing the cause of rising costs.”

US Rep. Derrick Van Orden, the Wisconsin Republican who fended off a challenge from Cooke, was one of 17 Republicans who voted for the temporary extension. He said he did not support subsidies but had to vote that way to protect his constituents. He noted that Democrats set the expiration date first.

But Van Orden has also been critical of his own party for allowing the tax credits to expire without another solution in place.

“For the last 15 years, if you said health care, they would dive out the window and barrel roll into a bush and hide,” Van Orden said. “We are the party of good policy, and therefore we have to write the policy, and we have to accept it.”

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Swenson reports from New York. Associated Press writer Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pa., contributed to this report.