Rfk Jr.'s Alliance With Trump Is On Tenterhooks

The MAHA and MAGA marriage is going through its roughest patch yet.

Tuesday’s sweep by the Democrats, along with waning support from some of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s biggest followers, suggests there’s plenty of reason for divorce. Kennedy now faces a gauntlet of hostile Democrats on Capitol Hill, while others are openly courting his supporters.

Some of his MAHA allies are blaming President Donald Trump for the loss, pointing to his support of glyphosate, a weedkiller MAHA supporters say causes cancer, or to the lack of far-reaching action against vaccines.

The union two years ago of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement and Donald Trump’s MAGA legions was one of convenience. Trump wanted to defeat Kamala Harris. Kennedy got a chance to pursue food, agriculture and vaccine policies that would have been anathema in earlier eras of Republican politics.

This week’s losses have thrown that calculus into doubt, raising questions about whether the energy that brought MAHA and MAGA together can sustain the coalition into 2028 — and whether Republicans have sufficiently engaged the voters that helped them elect Trump in 2024.

“I hope every single politician is reminded that they didn't buy these voters, they rented them. The voters have said they're moving, and they haven't necessarily moved to the Democrats. The Democrats are going to have to earn it,” said Tiffany Cianci, an online influencer who did volunteer work for Kennedy’s presidential campaign and identifies as an unaffiliated voter.

The scion of famously successful Democrats, Kennedy wants to regulate ultraprocessed foods, restrict pesticides and require pharmaceutical companies to jump through more hoops to sell their vaccines. The business-friendly Republican Party he joined when he dropped his own presidential campaign in August of 2024 and joined Trump’s wants to regulate business less. Industry groups typically aligned with the GOP have spent much of the last two years fighting Kennedy in Congress and in the courts.

It led to bickering from the start. While some GOP lawmakers backed Kennedy’s push to downsize the vaccine schedule, others condemned it. Plenty of them opposed his plans to go after food dyes and pesticides, and successfully lobbied the White House to scale them back.

MAHA supporters’ frustrations spiked in February, when Trump issued an executive order protecting glyphosate.

Since, there have been MAHA complaints about new Health Department appointees, like Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Erica Schwartz, who don’t share Kennedy’s skeptical views about vaccines, and Kennedy’s failure to take mRNA vaccines, like those used to combat Covid-19, from the market.

"The honeymoon period came to an end some time ago," Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, a MAHA ally, said on a call with supporters Wednesday. He argued that the "partial fracture that we've seen between MAHA and MAGA in some ways may be a good thing because it's important that MAHA not be a partisan issue."

Still, Robert Malone, a doctor and Kennedy backer who shares the health secretary’s skepticism of Covid-19 vaccine safety, said he expects “significant personnel changes, administrative restructuring of appointed positions, endless disruptive oversight hearings, retrenchment, and much more modest efforts to reform at the margins.”

Democrats have divergent plans for the MAHA movement. Some want to win it over, citing food and environmental policies on which they agree.

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who beat former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, ran on a “Building a Healthier America” policy agenda that spoke to MAHA advocates’ concerns about food safety and chemicals in the environment. A House working group led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has recommended the party court Kennedy’s followers.

Last month, the Center for American Progress, one of the most influential think tanks for Democrats, released a sweeping policy outline encouraging the left to adopt a MAHA platform around food and environmental protection. Neera Tanden, CAP’s president and a former adviser in the Clinton, Obama and Biden administrations, said MAHA supporters’ frustration with the GOP was an “opportunity for Democrats.”

Jennifer Galardi, who works on MAHA issues at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, welcomed the overtures from the left but remained skeptical about their approaches. “The grassroots of MAHA is rooted in conservative principles... while Democrats (particularly the Democratic socialists) may present a so-called MAHA agenda, it will not operate with these fundamental principles."

Other Democrats want no part of Kennedy. They are focused on his efforts to sow doubt about vaccine safety and plan to drive him from office by grilling him in committee hearings, subpoenaing him and his staff, even impeaching him.

"We're going to see RFK Jr.'s head on a platter,” said Erik Polyak, executive director of 314 Action, a political action committee that has spent more than $30 million in this election cycle helping Democrats, the most in its ten-year history. Polyak said targeting Kennedy was its “biggest motivator and fundraising tool.”

“Every action that RFK Jr. has done over the past year and a half, every conflict of interest is going to be investigated by Democrats,” Polyak told POLITICO.

Rumors have swirled about whether Kennedy would quit his role in response. Malone said the health secretary’s “personal position is that he is not a quitter and will stick it out.” Kennedy has not publicly addressed those questions.

For now, Kennedy is carrying on with his tour of the country. He’s expected to be in North Dakota Thursday for a press conference and discussions with Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer and the state’s Indian tribes on regenerative agriculture.

“Standing up to an overwrought Democratic investigative onslaught could be his best option for recovering his legitimizing position as underdog bravely fighting against corrupt forces,” Malone said.

Emily Hilliard, senior press secretary at Kennedy’s Health Department, said Kennedy “will continue delivering President Trump’s Make America Healthy Again agenda and advancing historic policies that put the health of the American people first.” She praised the Trump administration’s work on health issues in an emailed statement, arguing it “has transformed federal food and nutrition policy, expanded efforts to prevent and detect chronic disease, and reshaped the federal approach to scientific research and environmental health.”

For the MAHA coalition, particularly the disaffected Democrats and independents in it, the GOP’s election losses lead to a crossroads.

Tony Lyons, president of the movement’s web of nonprofits and political action committees, once hailed MAHA as a "once in a generation political gift to the GOP” and committed in March to raise $100 million to support MAHA-aligned Republicans in the midterms. He warned supporters that Democratic wins would kill Kennedy’s agenda.

On Wednesday, he said MAHA was willing to work with Democrats who embrace its agenda, during his first call with supporters since the GOP’s drubbing. Lyons expressed skepticism that Democrats really cared about MAHA issues and challenged them to prove that they do by working with Kennedy rather than trying to grill him in congressional hearings or impeach him.

“They have to get out of this idea that Bobby Kennedy is somehow bad, that their job is to kind of get rid of him rather than address the points that he's brought up, because millions of people in this country believe the things that he said and believe the transformation that he's brought to this country,” Lyons said.

Still, Lyons has struggled to demonstrate the movement's power. Donations from his groups have come in much smaller than promised and few candidates made Kennedy’s issues focal points in their campaigns.

Federal filings show Lyons’ MAHA PAC spent a little over $1 million on federal races, with around $209,000, or roughly 20 percent, going to candidates in competitive congressional races by the end of October. An analysis from Wesleyan University found just 0.2 percent of Republican Senate and House ads mentioned MAHA.

"The optics feel like MAHA has become an afterthought,” said Alex Voetberg, a MAHA influencer at Turning Point USA, a conservative group, adding that the Republican midterm loss means the party could be more incentivized to win back favor from MAHA supporters.

“Maybe that will mean that the admin starts realizing they made a mistake with us and starts groveling at our feet,” she said.

Most candidates aligned with Kennedy and MAHA, many of them endorsed by Lyons’ MAHA groups, lost Tuesday night.

That includes Republican Iowa gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn, for whom Kennedy and MAHA groups spent the most money and expended the most energy to get elected.

Republican Ashley Hinson lost her bid for the Iowa Senate seat of the retiring Joni Ernst. GOP Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn, both of whom Kennedy had sought to help, lost. So did Joe Mitchell, another Kennedy-backed GOP candidate in Iowa running for the House seat vacated by Hinson.

Senate races didn’t go any better for Kennedy and his movement. GOP candidate Ken Paxton’s loss in Texas to Democrat James Talarico deprives MAHA and Kennedy of what would have been a likely champion for their causes. As state attorney general, Paxton opened investigations into food, chemical and drug companies, earning praise from MAHA supporters.

Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, the chair of the MAHA Caucus in Congress, lost in a shocker to Democrat Adam Hamilton. Marshall, a senior member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has been the legislative voice for MAHA causes like ending chronic disease and improving nutrition.

Elsewhere, Annie Andrews, a Democratic pediatrician who has criticized Kennedy throughout her campaign for questioning vaccine safety, scored a victory against Republican Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina. Andrews reportedly called Kennedy her “professional archnemesis for decades” and supports his impeachment.

MAHA groups endorsed 97 candidates across federal and state races. Of the 21 endorsed candidates in federal races, 11 lost and six won, while four races remain undeclared. The six candidates who won were in uncompetitive races.

Of the 76 endorsed candidates in state races, 39 lost, while 28 won, and 7 races remain undeclared. Two candidates won uncontested.

Ultimately, Democrats won sweeping control of the House and Senate, paving the way for them to lead committees next year with jurisdiction over health care.

Andrea Lamont, a MAHA supporter in South Carolina, said the Republican loss marked a “very big risk for MAHA,” adding: “Our coach Kennedy will never be able to make the touchdown because we don't have the right players on the team.”

Others in the MAHA movement say it never made sense to try to align with one party and that moving public policy will require allies on both sides. Moms Across America, a nonprofit founded by Kennedy fan Zen Honeycutt, backed it up last month with endorsements of a number of Democrats, including Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Cory Booker, alongside Republicans.

On Wednesday, she said she expects Democrats to keep their word and deliver on MAHA issues or be ready for "some independent disruption" in 2028. Honeycutt also warned Democrats against trying to impeach Kennedy, arguing that would turn off Kennedy supporters who might vote for Democrats in 2028.

Some Kennedy supporters are optimistic about what's next.

“The Trump team valued the MAHA movement to the extent of what they could get from us,” said Lane Koch, the former Midwest regional director on Kennedy’s presidential campaign who hopes divided government will mean both parties will do more to cater to the MAHA voter base.

“I hope that [Democrats] take the MAHA principles and help us remove the negative affiliation from MAGA and Trump.”