In glow of recent victories, Democrats see health care as a winning issue.

WASHINGTON — Emboldened by election wins, Democrats are starting to see a political edge in health care, particularly widening Medicaid access for more low-income people.

In Virginia, Democrat Ralph Northam promised a vigorous push as governor to expand Medicaid. Voters who said health care was important went decisively for Northam, according to political analysts. In Maine, voters defied Republican Gov. Paul LePage’s determined opposition by passing a referendum to expand Medicaid to cover an estimated 70,000 more residents.

“Democratic voters have a lot of reasons they are angry at President Trump and Republicans in Congress,” said GOP pollster Bill McInturff. “These voters are intensely focused on wanting to see health care coverage expanded, not cut back, and efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act have contributed to their intensity and turnout.”

During Barack Obama’s presidency, health care was often seen as a political liability for Democrats. In 2010, they lost their House majority following the bitter battle to pass the ACA with no Republican support. In 2014, Democrats gave up the Senate a year after the Obama administration fumbled the rollout of HealthCare.gov. And candidate Donald Trump seized on rising “Obamacare” premiums as part of his closing argument in the 2016 presidential campaign.

But public opinion seems to have shifted amid widespread opposition to Trump-backed “repeal and replace” bills that would have left millions uninsured and made it harder for people with pre-existing health problems to get coverage. The GOP bills not only would have repealed the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, but also would have limited future federal financing for the entire program, even prompting opposition from some Republican governors.

“I think health care is a driving motivator for Democrats to elect people who will not take it away,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, ranking Democrat on the Senate health committee, said Wednesday. “What’s happened in the past six months is that Medicaid went from a hidden thing to something everyone has heard about. Before, nobody said, ‘I’m on Medicaid.’ Now we know it’s our next-door neighbor.”

Medicaid is a federal-state health program that covers about 75 million Americans, or about 1 in 5. Beneficiaries include elderly nursing home residents, severely disabled people of any age, and many newborns and pregnant women. Under the ACA, it was expanded to cover more lowincome adults, who in many cases work jobs that don’t provide health insurance.

Before Maine’s vote, 31 states — including New Mexico — and Washington, D.C., had expanded Medicaid under ACA. Now Mainestyle referendum campaigns are planned in at least three states — Alaska, Idaho and Utah. In Alaska, which has expanded Medicaid, voters will be asked if they want to preserve the expansion even if Washington decides to roll back federal financing.

Medicaid expansion has the support of the hospital industry and the medical community, influential interest groups in just about every state.

“I honestly believe that if you had a referendum on expanding Medicaid in most of the states that don’t have it, it would win,” said Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the senior Democrat on the House committee that oversees the program. “People know the value of Medicaid in a way that they didn’t before.”

Polling expert Robert Blendon says what’s changing is not so much that Americans have suddenly fallen for Obamacare, but that there’s a growing belief that government does have a responsibility to make coverage available and affordable.

“The Obamacare weapon was great for Republicans until you debated what the Republican alternative was,” said Blendon, who teaches at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.