out of the 40 house seats that dems flipped in nov...only 1 ran on medicare for all. and she was just part of a larger wave that wiped the entire gop out of orange country in cali. everyone else ran on strengthening/improving obamacare and protecting pre-existing conditions. even some repubs won by lying and saying they wanted to build on obamacare and protect pre-existing conditions (despite voting against it).

in fact...bernie kinda gifted the gop their most potent attack in the midterms. repubs just called dem candidates nationwide socialists and said they wanna take medicare from older people and give it to everyone else while raising everyones taxes to do it. they even did it to dem candidates who didnt support m4all...which lets you know the polling/feedback they got for the attack was positive. it hurt andrew gillum in florida and he had to back away from explicitly supporting m4all and just endorse generic 'universal coverage'. the moderate/educated suburbs that handed dems the house arent really big on m4all and could easily shift back to moderate socially liberal repub candidates who just pledge to make obamacare cheaper.

regardless of how much the overton window has shifted on the *discussion* of healthcare...healthcare reform in the united states is still a political third rail. clinton/dems got beat up for pursuing it. obama got his healthcare policy through due to a rare senate supermajority and unified control of government. but he was rewarded with the biggest midterm beatdown for any party since 1948. and we will be living out the ramifications of that loss for an entire generation or longer.

in general...when you propose something new...it gives your opponents the advantage of being able to define it because so much of it is unknown/unproven. in fact...fdr wanted universal healthcare as part of the new deal. but repubs effectively characterized it as a socialist plot to racially integrate hospitals. repubs characterized obamacare as death panel enactment. and now they have a proven line of attack on medicare for all. they could also paint it as a killer of jobs in the private healthcare industry. all of this at a time when americans are becoming more distrustful of government and its institutions.

just because its the best/right policy doesnt mean its right politically. i mean...dem policies are on the popular side of damn near every major political issue (wages, guns, etc) but how has that worked out?

and polls showing how popular medicare for all is are somewhat misleading. poll numbers decrease significantly when you tell people that they might have to pay more for it (even if it saves them more in the long run). that was a hard sell for bernie during the 2016 campaign and will still be hard to sell in 2020.