Editorial: Research the candidates to find out your standing

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The Democratic presidential debate Sept. 12 was the first to feature all 10 polling leaders on the same stage. The debate Tuesday featured the top 12 polling candidates.

Editorial Board

The largest single-stage Democratic debate took place Tuesday night, featuring three hours of back and forth discussion over jobs, health care and foreign policy, among other issues.

If there was one thing that we can be absolutely sure of after the fourth presidential debate, it is that this field is unlikely to narrow itself. Voters are going to have to do it themselves.

An often-recommended online quiz called “I Side With” can match you with candidates compared to your answers on policy preferences, but, more valuably, it asks you to assess what’s important to you.

The quiz is divided by policy area, with the option to expand past the standard yes and no answers to provide conditional answers, answers that provide more context or the option to submit a new answer. Beneath the answers, it also asks quiz takers to rate how important the question is to their voting habits.

From there, they can see what percentage they align with the candidates, but they’re also left with a view of what issues they’ve ranked as most important.

So, rather than listen to what the quiz tells you alone, take a minute to learn more about the issues you decided were important.

Did you rank a lot of health care questions as important? The 2020 candidates have a wide range of plans, from Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan — which would fully transition the U.S. to a single-payer system and eliminate private insurance — to Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s “Medicare for All Who Want It” — which incentivizes private insurers to bring down costs and offers a public option, with plenty of options in between.

Is education one of your top issues? Sen. Elizabeth Warren has a plan to cancel all student debt for more than 75% of Americans who have it and make two and four year public colleges and universities tuition-free. Sen. Cory Booker has said he thinks tuition-free college is a step too far and instead advocates for “a path to debt-free college.” Former Vice President Joe Biden’s plan is largely focused on supporting community colleges and expanding federal aid offered to low-income and minority students.

Whether either of these issues, climate change, immigration, criminal justice reform or any other issue is important to you, there’s a wide variety of plans out there, and the only way to find out who you want in the White House is by finding out where they stand.