This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Utah chapter.
As many of you know, there is an important decision that most of us will have to make in 13 months. We will be deciding which candidate we see fit to be the face of our country. Take the time to decide how you feel about certain issues such as health care, higher-level education, climate change, gun laws, and immigration. If you haven’t registered to vote, go out and do it. You have a say in our country’s future. You have a voice, so use it!
Here are the remaining Democratic candidates that were not listed in part 1. There are a whopping nine of them listed down below.
First up, someone you’ve probably never heard of:
- Who is She: Senator from Minnesota
- Stance on Gun Control: Supports universal background checks and banning high capacity ammunition and assault weapons.
- Plans for Health Care: Supports universal health care by expanding Medicare and Medicaid coverage. She also wants to make prescription drugs more affordable.
- Plans for Education: Wants to make one- and two-year community colleges tuition-free. She also wants to refinance student loans at lower rates.
- Plans for Climate Change: Supporter of the Green New Deal and will invest in clean-energy jobs and infrastructure. To learn more, click here.
- Immigration: Wants to create “an accountable pathway” to citizenship and protect DREAMers. Plans to stop separating families.
- Who is He: Mayor of Miramar, FL
- Stance on Gun Control: Supports expanding background checks and safer gun laws.
- Plans for Health Care: Supports access to quality health care and plans to fix our broken health care system.
- Plans for Education: Plans to establish dedicated revenue sources that will help pay college debt. Will urge students with debt to apply for cancellation. To learn more, click here.
- Plans for Climate Change: Supports the Green New Deal.
- Immigration: Wants to reform the immigration system and make our country more inclusive of immigrants. Plans to provide a pathway to citizenship for DREAMers.
- Who is He: Former Congressman from Texas
- Stance on Gun Control: Plans to implement universal background checks and ban the sale of assault weapons. He also wants to implement a mandatory buy-back for anyone with these weapons.
- Plans for Health Care: Supports universal, high-quality, guaranteed health care. Wants to reduce the cost of prescription drugs.
- Plans for Education: Plans to make community college free for every American. He also plans to make the first two years of state institutions tuition-free. To learn more about O’Rourke’s plans, click here.
- Plans for Climate Change: O’Rourke has a four step plan that will take far too long to summarize — to learn more about his plan, click here.
- Immigration: Wants to rewrite our immigration laws and create an easier pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. He also wants to welcome more refugees seeking asylum.
- Who is He: Senator from Vermont
- Stance on Gun Control: Plans to expand background checks and ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons, as well as high capacity magazines. Wants to stop NRA influence.
- Plans for Health Care: Believes everyone should have Medicare through single-payer programs. Sanders plans to lower the cost of prescription drugs.
- Plans for Education: Wants to make public colleges and universities tuition-free. Plans to pass the College for All Act which will provide at LEAST $48 billion per year to eliminate tuition at four-year public institutions. He also plans to cancel all existing student debt. To learn more about his plans in regards to education, click here.
- Plans for Climate Change: Supporter of the Green New Deal. Will declare climate change as a national emergency and will commit to reducing emissions around the world. To learn more about Sanders’s plan, click here.
- Immigration: Plans to expand DACA and DAPA. Will provide immediate legal status to those eligible for DACA and will end the separation of kids from their parents. No more kids in cages! Will completely reshape our immigration enforcement system.
- Who is He: Former Congressman from Pennsylvania
- Stance on Gun Control: Supports expanding background checks and banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines.
- Plans for Health Care: Plans to restore Affordable Care Act (ACA) and advance it. Sestak plans to fix our mental health system and wants to extend the protections of Medicare and Medicaid as well.
- Plans for Education: Wants to reduce the costs of higher education and reform how loans are paid back. Plans to establish a national college credit transfer system.
- Plans for Climate Change: Will stop subsidizing fossil fuel industries and give the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) full authority to regulate substances that worsen our climate. To learn more, click here.
- Immigration: Will create a path to naturalization for undocumented immigrants and will reform our immigration legislation.
- Who is He: Billionaire
- Stance on Gun Control: Wants to institute a national license program for all gun owners and require universal background checks. Like most of the candidates, he wants to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines.
- Plans for Health Care: Supports universal health care. Wants to lower the cost of prescription drugs and create an affordable health care system.
- Plans for Education: Plans to forgive certain types of student loans and debt.
- Plans for Climate Change: Like O’Rourke, Steyer has a plan that is too long to summarize, but here’s what you need to know: he will prioritize communities that have been treated like “dumping grounds”. To learn more about his plan, click here.
- Immigration: Will take executive action to reinstate DACA and TPS programs. He also wants to grant asylum to individuals fleeing persecution and oppression. Wants to create an easier pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
- Who is She: Senator from Massachusetts
- Stance on Gun Control: To purchase a gun, you will need to go through a required background check. She also supports raising the minimum age of purchasing a gun to 18 years of age. She wants to pass a federal assault weapon ban that will also affect high capacity magazines. Warren would like to establish a buy-back program as well, and those who fail to register or return their assault weapon could face penalties. To learn more about Warren’s plan to end gun violence, click here.
- Plans for Health Care: Supports Medicare for all and the ACA. She plans to lower the cost of prescription drugs and invest in mental health.
- Plans for Education: Warren plans to give every American the opportunity to attend two-year or four-year public institutions without paying tuition. She also plans to make free college universal — especially for lower-income families. She also has plans to cancel 95% of debt for nearly 45 million Americans. To learn more about her plans, click here.
- Plans for Climate Change: Warren has multiple plans to restore our climate. Some of those plans include Clean Energy, Green Manufacturing, Environmental Justice, Protecting Public Lands, and so on. To learn more about Warren’s detailed plans, click here.
- Immigration: Warren plans to eliminate abusive enforcement and remake CBP and ICE in a way that doesn’t target immigrants and communities of color. She also wants to raise the refugee cap and grant asylum to those who need it. Warren plans to provide a fair and achievable pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and DREAMers.
- Who is She: Author
- Stance on Gun Control: Williamson will ban the sale of assault weapons and semi-automatic weapons as well as high capacity magazines. She will require universal background checks and require child safety locks on all guns.
- Plans for Health Care: She supports a universal health care system. Williamson will “make Medicare an option on the Obamacare exchanges”. To learn more about her health care plans, click here.
- Plans for Education: Will ensure that qualified students receive free college or technical school tuition. She also plans to reduce the interest rate for loan repayments.
- Plans for Climate Change: Supports the Green New Deal and will ensure that it creates high-quality union jobs with healthy wages. She will also expand investments in clean energy in order to reduce carbon emissions. To learn more, click here.
- Immigration: Will create a pathway to citizenship for law-abiding, productive immigrants that currently live in the US. She is a supporter of DACA and will close private detention centers. She plans to end family separation and speed up the process for those seeking asylum in the United States.
- Who is He: Former Tech Executive
- Stance on Gun Control: Will promote a licensing system, prohibit the sale of assault weapons, and confiscate any weapon that has been modified to be one. To learn more about his plans to end gun violence, click here.
- Plans for Health Care: Supports a Medicare-for-all system.
- Plans for Education: Will reduce student loan payments by making sure the government doesn’t profit from the loans. He will ask schools to forgive some debt for those who don’t graduate and will change bankruptcy laws to make it easier to discharge student debt.
- Plans for Climate Change: Supports the Green New Deal and has a detailed plan on how to restore our climate. He even has a timeline for the net-zero emissions goal. To learn more, click here.
- Immigration: Plans to create an easier pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and supports the DREAM Act.
CONGRATS! You made it to the end!! I’m sure you can see that a lot of these candidates share similar values and have similar plans, especially when it comes to health care, gun control, and immigration. I’d just like to point out that after looking at every candidate’s official campaign website, there are some that CLEARLY have well-thought-out plans for the future of this country, while others do not. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are just two of the individuals with detailed plans. I’m not telling you to vote for them, but I highly encourage you to check out their policy ideas — it will be worth your while. I’m leaving you with these last few words.
VOTE! VOTE VOTE!!!!!
And if you haven’t registered to vote, REGISTER TO VOTE!!