[This column was reported for Political Breakdown, a bi-monthly newsletter offering analysis and context on Bay Area and California political news. Click here to subscribe .]

As Democrats look to make health care a defining issue in next year’s midterms, the party and allied groups are recruiting doctors to run against Republicans in some of the nation’s most competitive House districts.

Two California doctors — Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains and Rep. Ami Bera — are running in GOP-held seats seen as key to Democrats’ chances of flipping the House. Their early campaign ads and logos, filled with lab coats, stethoscopes and heart-rate lines, underscore Democrats’ bets that health care will be friendly terrain for the party and that doctors remain trusted voices for most voters.

That strat

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