Stacey Abrams paced the brightly lit pulpit of the Kingdom Builders Covenant Church on a cold, drizzly evening before Election Day, preaching the gospel of Medicaid expansion.
“When we help the least of these, we help everyone,” said the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, pointing her finger in the air as audience members swayed in their chairs, raised their hands and called out in assent. “Republicans are too mean and too cheap to take the money. But we know that health care is not a privilege in America. Health care is a right in America, and that is why I’m running.”
Georgia’s neck-and-neck governor’s race is one of at least half a dozen where a Democrat supporting Medicaid expansion has a fighting chance to replace a Republican who opposes it. Competitive races in Florida, Wisconsin, Kansas, Oklahoma and South Dakota could also flip the status of holdout states that have so far refused Obamacare's Medicaid expansion — though Republican legislatures are not likely to make it easy.
In addition, Maine voters who overwhelmingly backed expansion in 2017 will choose between a Republican who vows to continue departing Gov. Paul LePage’s crusade to block Medicaid’s implementation and a Democrat who says she will immediately enact it.
Four more states deep in Trump country — Idaho, Utah, Nebraska and Montana — have Medicaid expansion questions on their ballots; in Montana’s case, whether to continue their legislature-approved expansion.
