Six days after President Donald Trump's administration asked the Supreme Court to overturn Obamacare, voters in deeply red Oklahoma effectively voted to embrace the law by adopting its Medicaid expansion.
The narrow victory for Obamacare came in a state that Trump won by 36 points in 2016, highlighting a growing gap between the president and his own base on health care as he asks Americans to give him four more years. The tension comes as anxieties are rising amid a coronavirus resurgence that has forced some states to pause or roll back the reopening.
Oklahomans joined voters in other red states like Utah, Nebraska and Idaho in expanding Medicaid under the 2010 law, which the Supreme Court made optional. Trump does not appear in any danger of losing these states on Nov. 3, but Democrats intend to weaponize the issue elsewhere — in battleground states.
For Trump, health care could go from being a vulnerability to a fatal political wound. It was the top issue for voters in the 2018 elections and those who cited it preferred Democratic candidates by 52 points in House races, according to exit polls.
Joe Biden is hoping to replicate that this fall by criticizing Trump's attempts to undo Obamacare's protections for pre-existing conditions and expansion of Medicaid coverage for low-income people.
"He just keeps giving us more ammunition," said Guy Cecil, the chair of the Democratic super PAC Priorities USA.