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Democrats rejected efforts to amend the party’s platform to show support for Medicare for All and legalizing marijuana, as they moved the document closer to adoption by delegates to next month’s convention. The document, approved Monday by the party’s platform committee, aligns closely with presumptive nominee Joe Biden’s campaign proposals. The next step is for the platform to be voted on by nearly 4,000 Democratic delegates, which they will do by mail ahead of the convention where Mr. Biden is set to be formally named the party’s nominee. (Collins, 7/27)

Nearly 400 Democratic delegates plan to oppose any party platform that does not include "Medicare for All," saying the coronavirus pandemic illustrates the urgency. “This pandemic has shown us that our private health insurance system does not work for the American people. Millions of people have lost their jobs and their health care at the same time,” Judith Whitmer, a delegate for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who chairs the convention’s Nevada delegation, told Politico. “There’s people leaving the hospital now with millions of dollars in medical bills. What are we going to do about that?” (Budryk, 7/27)

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden leads President Trump by 10 points nationally in the latest Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey, with a strong majority of voters viewing Biden as better equipped to lead the country through the coronavirus pandemic and racial turbulence. The poll found Biden at 55 percent support, against Trump at 45 percent. That’s effectively unchanged from June, when Biden led by 12 points. (Easley, 7/27)

Six months ago, the first Covid-19 case was diagnosed in the U.S. in a man who had returned home to Washington state from visiting family in Wuhan, China. The infection set off a flurry of local efforts to prevent the spread of the virus, while serving as a signal that the U.S. was not protected from the pathogen. STAT recently spoke with U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, the Washington Democrat who represents the district where that first known case occurred, about the lessons learned from it, what the role of a member of Congress is during a pandemic, and what more lawmakers need to do to help the U.S. response. (Joseph, 7/28)