The Issues

COVID-19 has laid bare deep fault lines in our economy, our society, and our health care system. Disparities in health care access, in access to paid sick leave, in environmental quality, in the employment market, and in housing have contributed to disproportionate rates of infection and death among Black Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and certain Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.

The economy is not working for the American people. In a matter of weeks, the abject failure of President Trump and his Administration to competently respond to the COVID-19 pandemic erased all the job gains made since the Obama-Biden Administration pulled the country out of the Great Recession, and plunged the economy into recession once more.

Democrats have fought to achieve universal health care for a century. We are proud to be the party of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. Because of the Obama-Biden Administration and the Affordable Care Act, more than 100 million Americans with pre-existing conditions, from heart disease to asthma, are secure in the knowledge that insurance companies can no longer discriminate against them. Women can no longer be charged more than men just because of their gender. And more Americans are able to get health coverage than ever before.

Our criminal justice system is failing to keep communities safe—and failing to deliver justice. America is the land of the free, and yet more of our people are behind bars, per capita, than anywhere else in the world. Instead of making evidence-based investments in education, jobs, health care, and housing that are proven to keep communities safe and prevent crime from occurring in the first place, our system has criminalized poverty, overpoliced and underserved Black and Latino communities, and cut public services. Instead of offering the incarcerated the opportunity to turn their lives around, our prisons are overcrowded and continue to rely on inhumane methods of punishment. Instead of treating those who have served their time as full citizens upon their return to society, too many of our laws continue to punish the formerly incarcerated, erecting barriers to housing, employment, and voting rights for millions of Americans.

Protecting Americans’ Civil Rights

Achieving Racial Justice and Equity

Protecting Women’s Rights

Protecting LGBTQ+ Rights

Protecting Disability Rights

Honoring Indigenous Tribal Nations

Ending Violence Against Women

Ending the Epidemic of Gun Violence

Supporting Faith and Service

Supporting Press Freedom

Supporting the Arts and Culture

Climate change is a global emergency. We have no time to waste in taking action to protect Americans’ lives and futures. The last four years have seen record-breaking storms, devastating wildfires, and historic floods. Urban and rural communities alike have suffered tens of billions of dollars in economic losses. Dams have failed catastrophically in Michigan. Farmers’ crops have been drowned in their fields across the Midwest. Coastal communities from Florida to New Jersey are facing an existential crisis as a result of sea level rise and stronger storms. Thousands of Americans have died. And President Trump still callously and willfully denies the science that explains why so many are suffering.

Protecting and Enforcing Voting Rights

Reforming the Broken Campaign Finance System

Building an Effective, Transparent Federal Government

Making Washington, D.C. the 51st State

Guaranteeing Self-Determination for Puerto Rico

Supporting the U.S. Territories

Strengthening the U.S. Postal Service

Out of many, we are one.

E Pluribus Unum.

That bedrock American idea has animated our country from its earliest days, inspiring people from every corner of the earth to participate in our great democratic experiment

Education is fundamental to the idea of America and to fulfilling our nation’s promise. It is the key to addressing the challenges before us—to growing our economy, maintaining American competitiveness on the world stage, and building a more just, equitable, civically engaged, and socially conscientious nation.

Reinventing Alliances

International Institutions

Foreign Assistance and Development

Ending Forever Wars

Securing our Competitive Edge

Defense Spending

Keeping Faith with Our Veterans and Military Families

Civil-Military Relations

Global Health and Pandemics

Climate Change

Technology

Nonproliferation

Terrorism

Democracy and Human Rights