Democratic presidential hopefuls have participated in national televised town halls over the past few months to introduce themselves to voters. What voters have seen is candidates who want to eliminate private health insurance, eliminate the electoral college, bemoan white men, excuse anti-semitism, declare immigration is not a national security issue, refusing to call Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro a dictator, and tell the story how he took his mother to a x-rated film.
Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) sparked a debate among Democrats on whether their push for Medicare for All should eliminate private insurance and force everyone on a government plan.
"Well, listen, the idea is that everyone gets access to medical care, and you don't have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require. Who of us has not had that situation where you've got to wait for approval, and the doctor says, ‘Well, I don't know if your insurance company is going to cover this.' Let's eliminate all of that. Let's move on," Harris said.
Candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) support the measure while others like Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.) and Gov. Jay Inslee (D., Wash.) don't.
After 2016 when Hillary Clinton lost to President Donald Trump in the electoral college but won the popular vote, Democrats suggested that changes needed to be made to the presidential election. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) made the push towards that by being the first Democratic candidate to explicitly call for the elimination of the electoral college. Booker suggested the same during his town hall where he called for the candidate to who received the most overall votes should win.
The town halls showed Democrats tried to downplay several issues like anti-semitism, immigration and the dictator in Venezuela.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D., Hawaii) tried to excuse her colleague Rep. Ilhan Omar's (D., Minn.) anti-Semitic tweets during her town hall with CNN.
Gillibrand declared immigration wasn't a national security concern.
Sanders refused to call Maduro a dictator during one of his town hall and instead called the last election not Democratic.