Medicare for All (M4A) is back. Juliana Stratton, who just won the Illinois Democratic Senate primary, pledged in her victory speech to “fight for Medicare for all.” Graham Platner, the populist veteran and oyster farmer running to unseat Susan Collins in Maine, has made universal health care a centerpiece of his platform. Abdul El-Sayed, running for Michigan’s open Senate seat, is one of the policy’s most prominent champions — he literally wrote the book on it. In California, single-payer has become a near-universal fixture of Democratic gubernatorial platforms, with Katie Porter, Tony Thurmond, Betty Yee, and Xavier Becerra all declaring support. And Rep. Pramila Jayapal has been presenting polling directly to House Democratic colleagues arguing the electoral merits of Medicare for All, even in battleground districts the party must win to flip the House.

But whether M4A is a winning issue or an electoral liability for progressives depends — particularly for those running in red and purple districts — on how the issue is framed to voters.

Polling data makes the framing problem clear. Depending on how you ask, Americans’ support for universal health coverage lands at anywhere between nearly 70 percent to just over 30 percent. When the question leads with outcomes, coverage, access, and affordability, large majorities say yes. Indeed, when you poll Americans on whether the federal government should make sure everyone has health care coverage, 66 percent say yes.