Democrats see Medicare as winning issue for 2012 election

Updated at 2:07 p.m. ET

The chairman of the House Democratic campaign committee doesn't want to gloat, but Rep. Steve Israel says his party will keep hammering at a GOP plan to dramatically revamp Medicare all the way to the 2012 elections.

The Democratic message that House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's plan to convert the popular health insurance program for seniors into a voucher system "would end Medicare as we know it" helped Democrat Kathy Hochul win a special election Tuesday night in a GOP House district in western New York.

"When it comes to defending Medicare for seniors instead of giving big tax cuts to oil companies, we will fight for Medicare anywhere," Israel, D-N.Y., said in an interview with USA TODAY. "The fact is if we can win in one of most conservative Republican districts in America, then we can win in many other places."

Ryan, R-Wis., has been using Twitter to defend his Medicare plan, which is contained in a larger budget proposal that would cut $4.4 trillion over the next decade. The primary GOP message, as shown in the following tweet, is that Ryan says his plan will preserve Medicare for people who are now under 55.

On Medicare: no changes 55+; save program for next generation w guaranteed coverage options; more for poor & sick

All but four House Republicans voted for Ryan's budget proposal, which has no chance of passage in a Senate controlled by Democrats. President Obama has strongly criticized the plan.

Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, played down the importance of Hochul's victory.

"If special elections were an early warning system, they sure failed to alert the Democrats of the political tsunami that flooded their ranks in 2010," Sessions told CNN.

Democrats need a net gain of 25 seats to take back control of the House. Israel said there is an analysis that 97 House districts are more moderate than New York's 26th District won by Hochul, which would expand the party's playing field for the 2012 elections.

In the Senate, where Democrats hold a narrow majority and have more seats to defend than the GOP, Medicare has become an issue in races in Nevada, Massachusetts, Indiana, Florida and Ohio that will factor into which party has control of the chamber.

Guy Cecil, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in a strategy memo released to reporters that Medicare "has become the single most influential issue in the public debate."

He notes that in the 2010 elections Democrats lost the votes of senior citizens by 21 percentage points. Cecil says that won't happen next year.

"What is clear from the results of last night's special election is that the Republican effort to end Medicare will enable Democrats to close that gap in 2012," he wrote.