Politics
Poll: MAHA wants more. They may turn to Democrats to get it.
Republicans hope the Make America Healthy Again movement becomes a permanent fixture of a big GOP tent. But the party can’t count on its support heading into midterm elections this November.
New results from The POLITICO Poll show both broad frustration and dissatisfaction with the Trump administration on health priorities and opportunities for Democrats to make inroads with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA supporters.
A majority of Americans associate MAHA with the Republican Party, but not overwhelmingly, and most believe the Trump administration has not done enough to “Make America Healthy Again” — including a 41 percent plurality of Trump’s own 2024 voters.
The burgeoning political movement that officials in both parties credit with helping President Donald Trump win in 2024 has already begun to reshape how the GOP approaches health policy — driving everything from a redesign of the food pyramid to a rollback in vaccine recommendations.
At the same time, however, many poll respondents view Democrats as better positioned on the movement’s key health priorities. They were more likely, for example, to say the Democratic Party can be trusted to make the country healthier and are more eager to improve health in America, while fewer said the same of Republicans. The GOP, on the other hand, is seen as more likely to be influenced than Democrats by lobbyists for the food and pesticide industries, who rank among the MAHA movement’s top enemies.
These views could have real consequences in a midterm election year when razor-thin differences in turnout could determine control of Congress. And Democrats are bullish about channeling voters’ frustration with the Trump administration’s policies into a blue wave this cycle.
“The MAHA movement in the [2024] campaign cycle started with a lot of energy, and did create more energy for these types of issues that previously wouldn’t have been associated with the GOP,” said Abby McCloskey, a GOP policy adviser who has warned that Republicans are “squandering their MAHA moment.”
“Since then, I think the energy has trickled off from the perspective of, what is the federal government going to do about this?” she said.
Overall, 47 percent of poll respondents say they support the MAHA movement, including roughly a third of voters who backed former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 and about a third of Americans who plan to vote for Democrats this November. By comparison, 70 percent of Trump 2024 voters say they support the MAHA movement.
However, Americans don’t consider the nation’s health a top issue; It saw the same level of prioritization as “wokeism” and opioid abuse. When asked to choose between priorities for the U.S. government, a majority placed improving Americans’ health above stopping illegal immigration or cutting down on crime — but below affordability and concerns with cost of living.
And there are still widespread misconceptions about what MAHA is and what it does — even among people who self-identify with the movement. Just a third of Americans say they have heard of the MAHA movement and could explain what it is. Another third say they have heard of MAHA but could not explain it, including 31 percent of people who identify as part of the movement. One in four Americans had not heard of the movement at all.
The poll points to an opening for Democrats if they can effectively speak to the movement’s most popular issues and highlights that Republicans’ advantage with MAHA is far from guaranteed.
“People that we would call a ‘MAHA’ voter, they’re not partisans. They really are up for grabs,” Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) told reporters on a recent call organized by the progressive advocacy group 314 Action, which is working to elect people with a health and science background to public office. “[Republicans] have really taken actions to alienate those folks, to break the promises that they made. They are no longer focusing on the core tenets of that Make America Healthy Again platform in order to continue to please Donald Trump, and also to advance their policy agenda.”
The Trump administration has largely pushed a deregulatory agenda, despite pressure from its MAHA supporters to crack down on pesticide companies, food manufacturers and drugmakers. Its recent choice to make it easier for Bayer to increase production of its weed killer Roundup has especially enraged MAHA supporters, who have said the move made it harder for them to continue supporting GOP candidates in the November midterms.
Kennedy’s own allies have warned Republicans that they cannot take MAHA voters for granted heading into November. Tony Lyons, the president of the MAHA Action, a political advocacy group that supports Kennedy’s agenda, said last month in a memo obtained by POLITICO that the GOP is merely “renting MAHA voters” but hasn’t been able to “purchase” them.
The Blue Light News Poll also finds that the issues self-identified MAHA supporters rank as most important are ones Democrats have championed more often than Republicans, such as halting the spread of infectious diseases, stricter regulation of “forever chemicals,” and expanding access to reproductive health care.
This is not necessarily surprising, since many voters who support MAHA’s goals have typically been Democrats, said Rodney Whitlock, a longtime GOP congressional aide turned health care strategist.
Some of the policies less popular among MAHA respondents, meanwhile, are ones the GOP has embraced: restricting abortion access and reducing the number of vaccines Americans receive.
Yet the movement still lines up with, and supports, some Republican food policies and initiatives. For example, 80 percent of MAHA respondents support removing artificial dyes from food and 72 percent support restricting junk food purchases in federal nutrition programs, both priorities the Trump administration has tackled.
Lyons has urged Republicans to talk more about Kennedy’s policy goals, including discouraging Americans from eating ultraprocessed food, on the campaign trail. If they fail to do so and disgruntled MAHA voters peel off or stay home in November, he has warned, Democrats could take control of Congress, subject Kennedy to oversight hearings, and block his policy and regulatory efforts from going forward.
Lyons did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The Blue Light News Poll results — along with other recent polling showing declining trust in the Trump administration’s health recommendations — reveal a potential vulnerability for Republicans.
House Majority Forward, a nonprofit allied with House Democratic leadership, surveyed voters in February and March across several battleground districts the party is hoping to flip this fall. The group’s polls, shared first with POLITICO, found that more voters in Colorado, Iowa, New Jersey and Pennsylvania disapprove of Kennedy and his performance as health secretary than view him favorably.
“There’s this opportunity for Democrats to just start talking about making foods healthier and reducing the chemicals in the food that we’re giving them, … you know, limiting pesticide use, getting physical activity, removing artificial dyes,” said Carly Cooperman, a Democratic pollster and CEO of Schoen Cooperman Research.
A growing number of House and Senate Democrats — challengers and incumbents — are taking this advice to heart.
They’re beginning by focusing on pesticide use, which has become a political tension point for Trump’s GOP coalition, pitting the MAHA movement against powerful farm industry interests that have long been loyal to Republicans and hold significant sway with the administration.
Democratic lawmakers have railed against the Trump administration in social media posts, floor speeches and hearings for signing an executive order boosting domestic production of the pesticide glyphosate and siding with Bayer in a case pending before the Supreme Court that could shield the company from liability for the health impacts of its products. Democratic lawmakers, joined by a handful of Republicans, are also introducing bills and amendments that would undo or overturn these actions.
The Blue Light News Poll found that limiting pesticide use is broadly popular, with more than two-thirds of respondents in support of doing so. And MAHA’s dissatisfaction with the Trump administration’s stance has led to some leaders within the movement threatening to primary farm-state Republicans as early as August of last year — yet another opportunity Democrats can exploit.
“We’re not even sure that we even have a path forward in this administration when it comes to pesticides, because it’s very clear that they are entirely owned by Bayer and the chemical companies,” said Kelly Ryerson, a MAHA influencer who goes by the moniker Glyphosate Girl online and has publicly backed Kennedy.
Progressive advocates also say Democrats would be wise to seize on MAHA voters’ simmering frustration.
“There is a genuine concern that there is unhealthy food in our food supply, and this administration is making it worse,” said 314 Action President Shaughnessy Naughton, whose group is backing Democratic challengers around the country.
Yet even as a segment of MAHA appears to sour on the GOP — and Kennedy — some of his agenda garnered widespread support among poll respondents, from removing artificial food dyes to offering whole milk in schools. Though MAHA respondents didn’t rank Kennedy’s stances on vaccines high on their list of importance, a notable chunk of Americans are highly skeptical of existing requirements.
The Blue Light News Poll found that 41 percent of respondents across party lines support reducing how many vaccines Americans receive, with Republicans significantly more likely to hold that view. Fifty-eight percent of Trump 2024 voters support reducing how many vaccines Americans receive, compared to 29 percent of Harris 2024 voters.
Broad support for some of the key positions of MAHA — especially among Trump 2024 voters — and approval of some of the administration’s actions on health, suggest that Republicans may still be able to leverage the popular elements of the platform to win over voters in November.
Because health ranks so far down the list of Americans’ concerns, it’s unlikely to be a decisive factor in how they vote this midterm. Still, that doesn’t mean Republicans should be complacent and assume MAHA priorities won’t matter at all, Republican strategist Whitlock warned.
“Republicans have to be working from the perspective of ‘everything matters,’” he said. “To do differently is political suicide.”
Prominent Texas Republicans are denouncing Bo French, a Republican nominee to join the state’s railroad commission, after he made a xenophobic post describing a group of Asian American students attending a University of Texas football game as a “problem.”
French posted a photo on X of UT students celebrating in the crowd and wrote: “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”
Sen. John Cornyn immediately condemned the post as racist and called on other Republican officials to speak out.
“This is the Republican nominee for statewide office,” Cornyn wrote on X. “Are other Republican elected officials going to condemn the intolerance and racism, or look the other way while it becomes normalized. This is how great political parties self-destruct. Sad.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also rejected French’s message in a statement shared with Blue Light News, saying the picture instead showed Texans united behind their college football team, which had just defeated top-ranked Ohio State.
“That is not my message,” Abbott said. “A selective picture of Longhorn fans celebrating our biggest home victory-ever-actually shows a way that Texans unite. We all support our college football teams.”
“The way we win the state is the same way we win football games,” Abbott added. “We unite under the brand of Texas.”
Abbott also defended Texas’ hard-line immigration policies, saying unity “doesn’t mean that Texas cannot also lead in having the toughest immigration laws of any state in America and freezing H1B visas at our universities.”
Several Republican members of the Texas House also joined in the backlash. State Rep. Lacey Hull urged French to remove the post, writing: “This post breaks my heart. I see college kids cheering on their football team. I see Texans.”
State Rep. Jared Patterson called the post “racist” and said it demeaned students because of their race or ethnicity.
“There is absolutely nothing Christian or conservative about looking at a crowd of young Texans at a college football game, seeing the color of their skin, and declaring that they are a ‘problem,’” Patterson wrote on X. “These are 20-year-old kids cheering for their university — not political props and not targets for racial attacks.”
Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows similarly wrote that opposing immigration policy does not justify “demeaning people because of their race or ethnicity,” adding that French’s post has “crossed the line” and should be deleted. State Rep. Jeff Leach offered a more succinct request: “Delete this, Bo.”
But French also drew support from some Republicans who attacked Cornyn for condemning him. Former Texas GOP Chair Matt Rinaldi accused Cornyn and other Republicans of mortgaging “our children’s future for government handouts and cheap labor,” while state Rep. Andy Hopper called Cornyn a “smug globalist” who had brought the policies at issue to Texas.
French has repeatedly engaged in inflammatory rhetoric. Earlier this year, he suggested Republicans should fear Islam and advocated for deporting 100 million people.
Representatives for French and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Former President Barack Obama is urging Democrats — including 2028 presidential candidates and congressional leaders — to more aggressively focus on a comprehensive AI agenda, warning in a closed-door fundraiser that the technology is at an inflection point.
“This is something that is moving very fast in private hands, and if we don’t get on top of it, I think can be dangerous,” Obama said at the fundraiser Thursday, according to a partial transcript of his remarks provided by his office. “If we do get on top of it, I do think it’s beneficial.”
Speaking alongside House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at the New-York Historical Society in Manhattan, Obama said he is neither a “doomer” nor an “accelerationist.” His remarks come amid increasing alarm over the technology’s advance, with executives at two of the country’s leading AI labs joining Elon Musk in calling for slowing its development, following months and years of cries from within the industry for government to act.
Obama said AI development would be “one of my central agendas” if he were running for president, throwing down a gauntlet as the shadow 2028 Democratic primary debate responded to the AI leaders’ calls.
“I would have a very clear plan, and I would talk about this, and I would say, here’s our plan for safety, here’s our plan for making sure our kids are not corrupted by this,” Obama said, according to excerpts of his remarks shared with Blue Light News by his office and first reportedby The New York Times.
Among the top concerns, Obama said: “I would be thinking about the economic impacts in very concrete ways and understanding what does it mean if there’s going to be job displacement. Where is that going to hit? How are we going to respond? Are there going to be limits to the amount of displacement that can take place? What is that going to mean for our social safety net? If it turns out that you’ve got a lot more people who can’t find full-time work because they’ve been rendered redundant, how are we going to respond?”
He also called for Congress to take action, telling Jeffries that Democrats should “put together a framework for a very public conversation” centered on the biggest issues.
Obama’s remarks mark a larger shift for both himself and the Democratic Party writ large: He governed as a tech-friendly Democrat, who broke POTUS tech barriers by having a laptop and iPad while in office and whose 2011 town hall at Facebook headquarters was widely seen as typifying the administration’s friendliness with Silicon Valley.
The Obama era was also known for Washington’s failure to confront the growing monopolization of power in the tech industry, most famously in the Federal Trade Commission’s 2013 decision not to file an antitrust lawsuit against Google. (The first Trump Justice Department later filed such a suit seven years later.)
Already on Sunday, at least two potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates addressed the issue of slowing the pace of cutting-edge AI development, or otherwise keeping their products from launching pandemics or cyberattacks.
Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Democrats need to “address it head on.”
“There needs to be safeguards. There need to be rules. There need to be limits. There needs to be a kill switch on rogue AI,” Buttigieg said, criticizing congressional Republicans and the White House for not moving quicker to rein in AI development.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who has gone from courting AI investment to pumping the brakes on data center development, posted to X Sunday that it’s “long past time for our federal government to step up, take this seriously, and put up some guardrails — both here at home and on the global stage.”
The calls for “some guardrails” are still much milder than the proposals coming from the far left of the Democratic caucus, including the proposal by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) to pause the development of advanced AI models and permanently ban “artificial superintelligence.” And Obama’s remarks underscore the leadership vacuum in a Democratic Party that remains in the wilderness after brutal 2024 losses and continues to struggle to unify around a policy agenda.
In a portion of his remarks, Obama acknowledged the lack of high-level leadership on the AI issue, saying that “part of the job for us is to give people a reason to believe again in the idea of the democratic project, the American project, the economy that works for everyone, opportunity for every kid, to reassure people that if we work together, we can deliver those things. That’s hard to do without somebody in the White House to lead the charge, but I do think that people are ready for that message.”
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has dismissed any worries about AI posing an existential threat, telling reporters last week that he’s mainly worried about beating China to dominate the technology.
Obama compared AI to other “dangerous technologies like nuclear power,” but added that it did not have the same “natural” and “physical constraints” on it that is not “under state control.”
In Congress, House and Senate lawmakers have sought to advance legislation to slow down or impose limits on AI development, so far without success. One key Senate proposal, led by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, faces an uncertain future because of differences over how to impose a legal duty on Silicon Valley companies that would hold them liable for harms their models cause. Another contentious issue is whether the legislation should preempt state from imposing their own AI laws.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday morning he would support talks with tech leaders on AI but insisted that developers — not Congress — are primarily responsible for ensuring their products are safe.
As lawmakers campaign in their districts ahead of the midterm elections, they are fighting to own the messaging as voters sour on data centers and the impact of AI systems on jobs and education, among other key areas.
DALLAS — Republicans are increasingly worried that North Carolina’s Senate race is slipping out of contention.
For months, they had argued that a post-Labor Day infusion of cash could jolt new energy into the largely stagnant but critical Senate race. But as Republican nominee Michael Whatley struggles to meaningfully close the gap against Democrat Roy Cooper in the polls, some in the party fear they’re running out of time.
Republicans’ concerns were apparent in side conversations, closed-door meetings and even on-stage speeches at their splashy midterm convention in Dallas.
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, a former National Republican Senatorial Committee chair, told Blue Light News that North Carolina was “probably one of the hardest” states on the map.
“You’re running against an existing governor,” Scott said of Cooper. “So that makes it harder in an open seat.”
One person, granted anonymity to discuss a private lunch they attended with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the Senate Leadership Fund on the second day of the convention, similarly described the North Carolina race as “tough.” The lunch was focused on the party’s battleground Senate map, and Thune zeroed in on Alaska, Maine and Michigan as top targets.
“North Carolina and Georgia are seen by most as off the map at this point, and with Michigan and New Hampshire becoming real flip opportunities as we get closer to November, it’s becoming even more challenging to justify spending in North Carolina and Georgia,” said one GOP pollster who was in Dallas for the convention and, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Public polling has consistently shown Cooper ahead, including a survey released Thursday that found the Democrat leading Whatley by 11 points among likely voters.
Even President Donald Trump appeared to acknowledge the challenge: “Now in North Carolina, you have a little more difficult case, because people don’t quite get it, but they’re going to find out,” he said during his speech on the first night of the convention, while reiterating his support for Whatley, his former handpicked Republican National Committee chair.
The White House later announced that he will travel to Gastonia, North Carolina, for a campaign rally with Whatley next week. “The president’s first visit in the coming week is going to be helpful,” said a person close to the Whatley campaign. “Roy Cooper has maxed out his support and can’t grow anymore. But voters in NC, especially on the right, tune in late and break late. The Trump visit will be a good motivator for our voters.”
North Carolina’s Senate contest has been one of the more subdued races of the cycle, especially for a perennial battleground that could play a pivotal role in determining control of the upper chamber. That could change as more money pours in during the final stretch — and if Whatley can pick up more steam.
“Some in D.C. — [Republicans] and [Democrats] — have viewed North Carolina as typically a slam dunk for Republicans,” Doug Heye, a longtime GOP strategist who is from North Carolina. “But that just isn’t true, as tight presidential and senatorial margins have shown us time and again.”
SLF, the top Senate super PAC, has pledged an initial $71 million in North Carolina through Election Day, including an initial $17 million summer advertising campaign supporting Whatley. No Going Back PAC, which is affiliated with the president’s MAGA Inc. super PAC, dropped roughly $5 million into North Carolina earlier this week. But in a state that has some of the country’s most expensive media markets, both parties may ultimately need to spend substantially more.
Whatley was at the Dallas convention, where he attended an event hosted jointly by SLF and the NRSC discussing the battleground map. He also had a speaking slot.
Whatley told Blue Light News that he was confident his campaign was “going to have the resources that we need to get our message out and talk to the voters about the issues that they care about.” Asked about the prospect of an influx of support from MAGA Inc., Whatley said he would “wait and see how that entire universe is going to come.”
But some Republicans are questioning whether additional money is enough to change the race’s trajectory at this point.
“There is still time, but even with at least $100 million, [Whatley] would need a campaign team capable of turning that money into actual points,” said one North Carolina-based Republican operative.
And Whatley could run up against the overall difficult environment for the GOP, as the party needs to shore up Republicans in other expensive states — like Texas — that historically have not needed attention.
“We can’t allocate a limited amount of resources and energy to 10 Senate races and expect to do well. We should be over-indexing where we think we have an edge,” the GOP pollster told Blue Light News in Dallas.
The NRSC isn’t worried about Whatley’s current standing.
“Summer polling has flattered North Carolina Senate Democratic candidates before only to be proven wrong in November,” Bernadette Breslin, NRSC national press secretary, said in a statement. In 2020, polling at this point in the cycle showed GOP Sen. Thom Tillis trailing Cal Cunningham, the Democrat, before Tillis ultimately won by roughly two percentage points. Cunningham was also caught in a late-cycle scandal.
Democrats haven’t won a Senate race or carried North Carolina at the presidential level since 2008, though they’ve come close a few times. But it’s undeniable that Republicans’ struggle to address high costs of living — voters’ top concern heading into November — and Trump’s sagging approval ratings are putting Democrats in a strong position, both in North Carolina and other key battleground states.
“When you look at Republicans who won close races in the past, the setting and political environment aren’t the same,” said a national GOP operative who was also in Dallas for the convention.
“Sen. Tillis was elected in 2014, a wave year for Republicans,” the operative said. “Tillis won reelection in 2020 with Trump at the top of the ticket, and his opponent had a huge scandal. 2022 was an open seat [and] Ted Budd was a congressman. Dems gave up on the seat and didn’t put the money needed into the race to win.”
For their part, North Carolina Democrats aren’t relying on Cooper’s current wide polling advantage to hold. The Cooper campaign noted that the former governor’s lead is already narrowing.
The political dynamics of the state also make Democrats uneasy: North Carolina has backed the Republican presidential nominee in each of the last four elections, and Whatley could still benefit from an enormous influx of outside spending.
“A Democrat has not won statewide federal office here in nearly two decades — and Whatley’s elite D.C. connections mean Republicans are going to spend whatever it takes to keep this seat,” Jeff Allen, Cooper’s North Carolina campaign manager, said in a statement. “North Carolina is a 50-50 state and this will be a margin-of-error race, which is why we’re building a campaign to earn every vote and make sure North Carolinians know that Roy Cooper will fight for them, while Michael Whatley will continue to enrich himself at their expense.”
Still, for Republicans, the challenge goes beyond money. Motivating lower-propensity Republican voters — who are loyal to Trump but who may otherwise ignore a midterm election — is central to the party’s strategy. It was an overarching goal of the midterm convention as GOP lawmakers and Trump officials repeatedly warned of a democratic socialist takeover and focused on bread-and-butter issues for their base.
Paul Shumaker, a longtime North Carolina GOP operative and top consultant for Tillis, said Whatley is running up against two key hurdles that threaten to dog Republicans this cycle: GOP voters’ low enthusiasm and Trump’s sinking standing with unaffiliated voters.
“The President is underwater with unaffiliated voters, and Michael Whatley has to win a majority of those unaffiliated who turn out this election year,” said Shumaker, who is unaffiliated in the race. “Given North Carolina’s registration number and the fact that there is little to no crossover voting between the two major parties, fixing both problems is the only path to victory.”
Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
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