Filling out that presidential ballot? Here’s a quick look at candidates and key California issues

As California Democrats weigh their options in the presidential race ahead of the state’s March 3 primary, many are looking for a candidate they believe is likeliest to beat President Donald Trump in the general election.

A recent poll from the Public Policy Institute of California found 57 percent of likely Democratic primary voters care more about electability, while 33 percent said they’d prefer a candidate whose policy views align closest to theirs.

But the poll also found that voters have several key issues on their minds: housing affordability, climate change, health care, higher education and immigration.

Here’s a quick summary of where the top candidates stand:

Housing

Bernie Sanders: He wants the federal government to spend $2.5 trillion to build more housing, including $410 billion over the next decade to eliminate the backlog of 7.7 million families who qualify for federal rental assistance but are stuck on waiting lists. He would pay for it by taxing the top 0.1 percent of earners. He also wants to cap annual rent increases at no more than 3 percent plus inflation.

Joe Biden: Biden says nobody should pay more than 30 percent of their income on rent. He also wants to give first-time home buyers a $15,000 down payment from the federal government.

Elizabeth Warren: She says she’d work to spend $500 billion over the next decade to build and renovate housing for low-income people. To pay for it, Warren wants to raise estate taxes on people who inherit more than $7 million, a change from the current $22 million threshold.

Pete Buttigieg: He wants to spend $430 billion on housing for the restoration and construction of 2 million units for low-income people. He also supports changing local zoning laws to make it easier to build new housing.

Michael Bloomberg: Bloomberg would address housing affordability by expanding tax breaks for affordable housing developers, providing vouchers for those whose income is at or below 30 percent of the area median income and double federal spending on homelessness, to $6 billion a year.

Amy Klobuchar: Klobuchar promises $1 trillion in housing and poverty spending, including on homeless aid and federal housing vouchers for families with children. To encourage more construction, she would give federal housing and infrastructure money to cities that cut zoning regulations.

Environment

Bernie Sanders: Sanders supports the Green New Deal and wants to spend $16.3 trillion over 15 years. He’d seek to phase out use of fossil fuels, calling for 100 percent sustainable energy for electricity and transportation by 2030 and a fully decarbonized economy by 2050. He also wants to ban fracking and stop importing and exporting of natural gas, coal and oil.

Joe Biden: He’s opposed to a national law banning fracking. Under his plan, the federal government would spend $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years to address the threat of climate change. He’d work to wean the country from non-renewable energy sources and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

Elizabeth Warren: Warren supports the Green New Deal, a ban on fracking and wants to spend $3 trillion over 10 years. Her plan calls for $1 trillion to help achieve “100 percent clean energy” by eliminating emissions from cars, buildings and power plants.

Pete Buttigieg: Buttigieg wants to get the country to net-zero emissions by 2050. His plan would cost between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion and leaves room for the continued use of nuclear energy. Buttigieg wants to implement a “bold and achievable Green New Deal” that he says is more realistic than the proposals from Warren and Sanders.

Michael Bloomberg: He wants to get the country to full decarbonization by 2050 and cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 relative to 2005 levels. By 2030, he’d seek to replace all coal plants with clean energy. He wants to create a “Wildfire Corps” “to lead efforts towards fire resilience.”

Amy Klobuchar: Klobuchar is a cosponsor of the Green New Deal, which she calls “aspirational.” As president, she’d seek to go carbon neutral by 2050. She also wants to spend $1 trillion on an energy infrastructure package, which she’d work with Congress to pay for through a price on carbon pollution.

Health care

Bernie Sanders: Sanders is calling for a government-run, single-payer health care system that eliminates private health insurance. He hasn’t attached a price tag to his plan, but says administrative savings would make the health care system less expensive than it is now.

Joe Biden: He wants to preserve the Affordable Care Act passed under the Obama administration and create a public option like Medicare administered by the federal government, rather than eliminate private health insurance. His plan would cost $750 billion over the next decade.

Elizabeth Warren: Warren wants to prove the viability of her Medicare for All plan before implementing a universal, single-payer plan that abolishes private health insurance.

Pete Buttigieg: Buttigieg is pushing a “Medicare for All Who Want It” plan that would cost about $1.5 trillion over 10 years. Poorer Americans living in states that have refused to expand Medicaid would be automatically enrolled in his public option plan.

Michael Bloomberg: He’s looking is looking to build on Obamacare by creating a Medicare-like public option administered by the federal government but paid for by customer premiums.

Amy Klobuchar: Klobuchar favors a non-profit public option that gives Americans the ability to get lower insurance costs and drug prices. She’d allow people to personally buy drugs from countries like Canada.

Higher education

Bernie Sanders: Sanders would cancel the roughly $1.5 trillion in student loan debt owed by nearly 43 million Americans. He would also make attendance at public colleges and universities tuition-free and debt-free to everyone, regardless of income, race or immigration status.

Joe Biden: Biden wants to provide people with two free years of community college, while eliminating $10,000 in student debt every year for public service workers.

Elizabeth Warren: Warren would offer free tuition for those wishing to attend public colleges and universities. She wants to cancel some debt for 95 percent of those with loans and eliminate it entirely for more than 75 percent.

Pete Buttigieg: Under his plan, Californians would get free tuition if their families make less than $100,000 a year. Families earning between $100,000 and $150,000 would receive “substantial tuition subsidies.”

Michael Bloomberg: He wants to expand Pell grants, make community college tuition free and overhaul the existing system for student loans.

Amy Klobuchar: Klobuchar would allow students to get free tuition for one-year and two-year community college degrees and technical certifications.

Immigration

Bernie Sanders: On day one, Sanders has said, he will ”sign an executive order that restores and expands Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals protections for 1.8 million eligible young immigrants and their parents.”

Joe Biden: Biden supports deporting undocumented immigrants only if they’ve committed a “major crime” and pose a significant safety and national security risk to the public.

Elizabeth Warren: She wants to “reshape” Customs and Border Protection as well Immigration and Customs Enforcement from “top to bottom” and create an immigration public defender corps.

Pete Buttigieg: He’d grant 125,000 refugees access to the United State during his first year as president and support legislation to allow, at a minimum, 95,000 refugees into the country each year. He’d allot employment-based visas according to economic demands and the labor market.

Michael Bloomberg: Bloomberg would approve more visas specifically in regions that need innovation for economic development.

Amy Klobuchar: She supports a legislative package to address border security while also granting citizenship for so-called Dreamers.

This story was originally published February 23, 2020 at 5:00 AM.