Rfk Jr.’s Making A Lot Of Friends In Iowa

For a guy who says he doesn’t plan to run for president again, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is spending an awful lot of time in Iowa.

This week, he rallied with supporters of his Make America Healthy Again movement for Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn and the GOP House candidate Joe Mitchell. He also visited an addiction recovery center and discussed maternal health at a meeting with local health providers in Des Moines.

Iowa’s a crucial battleground this year, with Republicans scrambling to hold onto the governorship, a Senate seat and multiple House seats. Lahn has wooed Kennedy supporters concerned about unhealthy food and pesticides by taking aim at farm chemicals and the companies that produce them. If Republican candidates hold on in the first-in-the-nation presidential caucus state, they’ll have Kennedy at least partly to thank. From the sound of things at Wednesday’s MAHA rally, he’d have a strong case for some endorsements.

"This man has been an inspiration to our country, and I will tell you, the entire country owes his family a debt of gratitude,” Lahn said with Kennedy by his side.

Mitchell, too, told the crowd he and his family were big fans. “When I told them that Bobby Kennedy was being nominated to be the next secretary of Health and Human Services, they looked at me and they cheered and they said, ‘No seed oils, no food dyes and no vaccine mandates.’”

Kennedy has said he’s not planning to run in 2028, accusing anyone who’d say otherwise of lying.

But some Kennedy supporters, disappointed with the Trump administration’s progress on their priorities, told POLITICO they would be happy to see him consider another presidential run. Kennedy was a candidate in 2024 before he dropped out and endorsed Donald Trump.

“His overall platform speaks to the moderate middle, and fills a gap that doesn’t have representation in politics at the moment,” said Kelly Ryerson, a MAHA influencer focused on fighting pesticides known as “Glyphosate Girl” online.

Kennedy’s election week swing through the Hawkeye State is just his latest visit there this year. This summer, Kennedy fished for bream with Lahn on a farm pond south of Des Moines; touted fitness with Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, one of the most endangered Republicans this cycle, in a Des Moines suburb; and visited a community health center in Dubuque, where Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin meet at the Mississippi River.

Earlier this year, Kennedy made calls to two Iowa Libertarian candidates trying to convince them to drop out of congressional races so they don’t play spoiler, potentially costing Republicans Mitchell and Zach Nunn. Like Miller-Meeks, both Mitchell and Nunn are in tight races.

In December, Lahn was the first candidate endorsed by MAHA Action, the Kennedy-aligned advocacy group started by Kennedy’s friend and book publisher, Tony Lyons. Trump later endorsed a different candidate, Rep. Randy Feenstra, in the race. Lahn’s victory in the June primary showed that MAHA and MAGA don’t always align.

At the rally put on by another of Lyons’ MAHA groups on Wednesday, Kennedy said Lahn’s race was “the most important election going on in this country today.”

Earlier this month, Lyons’ MAHA PAC and MAHA Action PAC announced they donated a combined $1.65 million to help Lahn. That’s the majority of the groups’ spending this cycle.

“There is no bigger MAHA champion than Zach, and no better state to plant the MAHA flag than Iowa,” Lyons’ PACs said in a statement announcing the contribution.

Polls have consistently shown Lahn trailing his Democratic opponent, Rob Sand, in the open-seat race.

Republicans fear economic frustration could weaken their support among Iowans who have trended red during the Trump era. The state’s farmers are suffering from high diesel prices stemming from Trump’s war in Iran, as well as tariffs the president imposed.

But Kennedy’s MAHA policies focused on healthier food and reducing pesticide use also resonate in the state, which has one of the fastest growing cancer rates in the country.

“It would be the ultimate example of how powerful MAHA is if we are able to elect an anti-glyphosate farmer in the biggest pesticide farming state,” Alex Clark, a MAHA influencer and conservative podcast host, said about Lahn.

Iowa wins could help revive a MAHA movement that’s splintering.

MAHA supporters have expressed growing frustration with the GOP since Trump issued a February order protecting glyphosate, the weed killer Kennedy and his supporters think causes cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer says the pesticide is probably carcinogenic to humans, but whether it causes cancer in people exposed to it in real-life circumstances remains contested.

Since, there have been 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.

Last month, grassroots advocates were annoyed when a MAHA Summit in Washington put on by Lyons touted sponsorships from Walmart, the world’s largest retailer and a major seller of the ultraprocessed foods Kennedy criticizes, and Anthropic and OpenAI, the artificial intelligence companies whose data centers some MAHA supporters fear.

“This midterm election really does determine the future of MAHA,” Clark said.

Still, others are skeptical of MAHA’s sway in the Iowa races.

“The MAHA movement is honestly pretty small bore, small scale,” said David Oman, an Iowa GOP strategist. "I don't see it adding or subtracting a great number of votes.”

Oman was also dismissive of another Kennedy run: “Bobby Kennedy Jr. is not on anyone's minds these days,” he said.

Lyons said he didn't think his friend was interested in 2028. "Kennedy has said repeatedly that he feels he can do the most important work at HHS, fighting the chronic disease epidemic that has become an existential crisis," he said.

Amanda Friedman contributed reporting.