By Colin McAuliffe (@ColinJMcAuliffe)

Democrats have a real chance to win back power in the upcoming midterms and 2020 elections, but what would the Democratic base expect that their newly elected representatives do with that power? We fielded and analyzed a nationally representative survey of 1,903 Democrats, who we each gave 100 “points” of political capital to allocate between 15 federal policy proposals (a forthcoming blog will explore state-level priorities). Since each respondent was given a limited number of points, they are forced to make tradeoffs based on their priorities if they favor multiple policies. That way we can determine what the base is most enthusiastic about, even if every policy is popular when polled individually.

We can quickly summarize the results by averaging the percentage of points allocated to each policy by all respondents, shown below. Medicare for all received the most points on average out of any other policy with 15 percent. When combined with cheap prescriptions, over 20 percent of points were allocated to healthcare related policies. Democrats have made healthcare a top campaign issue, and given the popularity of Medicare for All and policies that reduce the cost of prescription drugs, it’s not surprising to see that healthcare is a top priority for the base.

Following Medicare for All, gun control, impeaching Trump, and immigration reform each got similar levels of support (13 percent, 12 percent, and 11 percent respectively). After these top five policies, support begins to fall off, with green jobs recieving 9 percent of points and pay equity receiving 7 percent.