American Bridge Vice President Shripal Shah issued the following statement after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that 13 million Americans would lose their healthcare coverage if Republicans repealed the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate with their tax plan, as Donald Trump is urging them to do:

“Voters sent an unmistakable message to Donald Trump and Republicans last night: take healthcare coverage from millions of Americans in order to cut taxes for the wealthy and big corporations at your own risk.  The Trump tax scam already threatens to raise taxes on millions of middle class families, and yesterday a Republican member of Congress even admitted that this is all about pleasing big-money campaign donors.  Republicans in Congress who join with Donald Trump to sell-out hardworking people will be held accountable in 2018, just like Ed Gillespie and Republicans were last night.”

Exit polls indicate that healthcare was the most important issue for voters in Virginia’s elections, and that voters who were concerned about healthcare overwhelmingly supported Democrat Ralph Northam.  At the same time, Maine will become the 32nd state to expand Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act because of a referendum.

In May, American Bridge released a memo by David Brock and James Carville, “Leveraging the Health Care Debate to Build a Political Tidal Wave,” which made the case that healthcare has “the potential to be the defining issue that brings Democrats victory in 2018.”

Politico: “Health care rules the ballot: Medicaid, ACA get voters to the polls”

• Politico: “Tuesday’s results came after recent polling has demonstrated that Obamacare is more popular than ever and Republican plans to dismantle it were met with fierce resistance across the country.

Axios: “Exit polls in Virginia showed that health care was the No. 1 issue for a plurality of voters — and 78% of those voters broke for Democrat Ralph Northam.”

Washington Post: “39 percent of them chose ‘health care,’ far more than any other issue in early exit polls.”

• Washington Post: “And health-care focused voters favored Northam by a giant 77 percent to 23 percent margin in preliminary exit polls.”

ABC News: “Voters’ concern about health care boosts Northam”

NBC News: “Early Exit Polls: Health Care Most Important Issue for Virginia Voters”