Read the full article on the Washington Examiner.
The Make America Healthy Again movement scored one of its biggest wins of the cycle this
month after its endorsed candidate, businessman Zach Lahn, defeated Rep. Randy Feenstra
(R-IA), whom President Donald Trump backed, in the Iowa GOP gubernatorial primary.
The win was a rare moment when a Trump-endorsed candidate lost their primary and a clear
indication that MAHA is willing to spend its political capital, even if it means going against the
president.
In the final stretch of the campaign, MAHA PAC, an outside group backing movement-aligned
candidates, launched a text message campaign reaching nearly 350,000 likely Iowa GOP voters
and a voicemail campaign that reached more than 83,000 cellphones. The PAC also made
40,500 get-out-the-vote phone calls and conducted three rounds of robocalls to more than
36,000 landlines on behalf of Lahn.
The diverse coalition that makes up MAHA began under the leadership of Health and Human
Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during his 2024 presidential campaign, first as a
Democrat, then an independent, before eventually endorsing Trump’s campaign. But as
tensions with the Trump administration have grown, MAHA wants to assert a larger role not just
in 2026, but in 2028 and beyond.
“We don’t tell people how to vote, but moms have clearly demonstrated that we are not
beholden to a political party,” said Zen Honeycutt, the founder and executive director of the
Moms Across America Movement. “MAHA is not owned by one particular person. It’s not owned
by Kennedy; it’s not owned by Trump.”
“Our mission is to champion policy and public servants who put children, health, safety, and
America’s future first. And that’s exactly what Zach Lahn is doing, and why we’re so thrilled that
he won,” Honeycutt said.
MAHA’s support for Lahn was contingent on his opposition to glyphosate, an issue that led to
frustrations with the White House as the Supreme Court considers the Monsanto Company v.
Durnell case. The Trump administration supported Bayer, the maker of RoundUp, which
manufactures the herbicide glyphosate, the main chemical in RoundUp. The president also
previously signed an executive order shielding manufacturers from liability related to glyphosate.
“With Trump signing his executive order, where he said that glyphosate is essential to our food
supply, it kind of pissed a lot of people off,” said Claire Dooley, a prominent MAHA mother and
documentary filmmaker, who praised Lahn for opposing toxic chemicals.
Lahn’s victory over the establishment could be the start of a new political movement as MAHA
looks to races to boost health-conscious lawmakers.
“I think this is just the beginning, really,” said Dooley. “And as we move into the next election and
whoever is [in] the next presidential race … I think things are really going to kick off, and we’re
going to see a lot of this happening, which could be great.”Unlike the Make America Great Again coalition, MAHA has shown a willingness to break with
Trump and the broader GOP. It could complicate efforts for the GOP to keep control of the
House and Senate after Trump widened the coalition in 2024 to win back the White House.
Some Democrats, such as Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), have begun publicly pushing the party to
woo MAHA voters ahead of the midterm elections. Booker says MAHA’s advocacy for healthier
nutrition and combating chronic diseases is an admirable effort. But differences over key MAHA
issues such as COVID-19 vaccines also complicate that effort.
“I think that the MAHA movement is not strictly aligned with President Trump in the same way as
his base is,” said Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University public health law professor who
was previously removed from a National Institutes of Health advisory board. “But MAHA still
supports the president and Secretary Kennedy on most issues. Yet it is fully prepared to break
on its core issues like vaccines and glyphosate.”
“At the margins, MAHA voters could cross over to the Democrats,” Gostin added. “But their
views and political inclinations align much closer to the GOP and especially the MAGA
movement.”
GOP strategist Matt Dole similarly suggested that voters likely view MAHA and MAGA in the
same vein, and he cast doubt that Democrats could win over the MAHA cohort.
“I know the group may have nuance, but the average voter in a Republican primary this year
sees it as an extension of Trump,” he said. “MAHA may be setting itself up as a place where
displaced MAGA coalition members can come and have real influence on really important
issues.”
Focus groups that Cygnal data and insights pollster Brent Buchanan has conducted show that
millennial and Generation X women and men, who are likely to decide key electoral races, are
amenable to MAHA issues, although the coalition’s vaccine skepticism is not popular.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic upended the nation, a breakdown in trust has fueled sentiment
like MAHA’s anti-institutional fervor, a factor that helped propel Trump to power. The November
midterm elections and the 2028 presidential election could present opportunities for MAHA to
boost lawmakers who rebel against the establishment.
“It really is a movement of the people against the institutions, and that has been the defining
factor of most political battles,” said Buchanan. “They’re fed up. They’re fed up with the media,
they’re fed up with government, they’re fed up with big corporations.”
If Republicans are going to keep their relationship with MAHA, Buchanan suggested GOP
lawmakers tailor their MAHA messaging to “the parts that are broadly popular, not the parts that
only speak to small portions or actually repel people, like the anti-vaccine stuff.”