MAHA helped power Trump’s 2024 victory — but now RFK Jr. is exposing a GOP midterm vulnerability

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Just two years after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his “Make America Healthy Again” movement helped propel President Donald Trump into the White House, the now-Secretary of Health and Human Services is highlighting a political vulnerability in a bellwether state.

A measles outbreak in Pennsylvania has made public health a sharp issue of attack against the Trump administration, joining the cost of living and the war in Iran as a chief concern among voters that Democrats have seized upon.

And across the country — including in states that have seen hundreds of measles cases this year — Democratic candidates have sought to convert growing distrust for Republicans on public health into political advantage. The biggest outbreaks have centered in deeply red districts in places like Wisconsin, Utah and South Carolina – a state that could elect a Democratic senator who has said she ran in part to push back against Kennedy.

Some see an opportunity to highlight the chaos sown by federal changes to vaccine policy and Americans’ divided views on the health secretary, who espouses skepticism about vaccine safety and has denied that falling immunization rates have led to the rapid spread of infections.

More registered voters trust Democrats than Republicans – 41% compared to 25% — to handle vaccine policy, according to a May KFF poll . Sixty percent of voters said they disapproved of Kennedy’s performance as HHS secretary.

“What we’ve seen is that voters are really turned off by RFK Jr.’s unscientific approach to public health,” said Shaughnessy Naughton, a former Democratic Pennsylvania congressional candidate who founded 314 Action, a political strategy group that funds Democratic candidates with scientific backgrounds.

314 Action has run a six-figure ad campaign in at least five states — including Pennsylvania — expressly linking Republicans in competitive races with Kennedy Jr and unpopular federal policies.

The campaign started in April as measles began spreading in Pennsylvania, where the group is targeting Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, which Republicans narrowly flipped in 2024.

Even some Republicans see eroding trust for the party as it relates to science as a problem. “There’s certainly no shortage of tight election races. Anytime you have a tight race, who knows what’s going to trip the balance for a particular voter?” said Michael Burgess, a former Texas GOP congressman and doctor. “Why take a chance on alienating a potential supporter?” he asked, referring to the messaging on vaccines.

A Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted in September that interviewed 896 registered voters nationwide showed that 62% were concerned about measles outbreaks and 55% said they disapproved of how Trump was handling the outbreaks in parts of the US.

For Democrats and their backers, RFK Jr. is seen as the central figure of blame.

“The more that people are reminded of what he’s actually said and done, and the fact that the Republicans have done nothing to try to hold him accountable, I think that does resonate with voters,” said Naughton.

HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

In Pennsylvania, which has seen more than 1,300 cases and five deaths from measles this year, the ongoing health crisis has threaded together Democratic governor Josh Shapiro’s public battles with the Trump administration and his bid to win reelection this November.

Shapiro has openly sparred with federal health officials after Kennedy, in an extraordinary move this summer, questioned whether people had died from the disease and suggested Shapiro’s staff was “fear-mongering” about the severity of its spread.

Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images

The feud has frustrated even some Kennedy supporters in the state. A midwife serving measles-stricken communities in the state told CNN that Kennedy “is denying the science” and “has misrepresented the numbers.”

“All that does is create more confusion,” said the midwife, who reported seeing measles cases every day in recent weeks. She asked not to be named, citing concerns about patient privacy.

The debate has forced Shapiro’s opponent, state treasurer Stacy Garrity, to reassure voters that she supports vaccines and distance herself from Kennedy , with whom she appeared at a “Make America Healthy Again” rally in Harrisburg — a fact moderators pointed out at a debate this month.

It was the only MAHA event Kennedy has done in Pennsylvania since measles began to spread.

“That was in support of basically healthy eating for our kids,” Garrity said. “But I’m fully vaccinated. I believe in vaccinations.”

Down ballot, 314 Action’s ads home in on a competitive Pennsylvanian district by claiming that the incumbent GOP Rep. Ryan Mackenzie “won’t stand up to Trump and RFK Jr.”

The Cook Political Report currently rates the district as a leaning Democrat.

A statewide poll from Franklin and Marshall College this month found that 70% of voters believe the state should be doing more to encourage vaccination. Most Democrats aligned with that belief, as did most independent voters and nearly half — 49% — of Republican voters.

“It’s not the pivotal issue for voters as they weigh rising cost of living and foreign wars, but it’s another on the list of unpopular policies that Republican candidate have to contend with,” said Berwood Yost, the director of the college’s Center for Opinion Research who led the poll.

Voters are “really thinking about Trump and the Trump administration,” he said. “Kennedy’s part of that; he’s part of those policy pronouncements that people might be judging.”

Anthony Kotsagrelos lives with his wife in the Pittsburgh area, where they got their one-year-old son vaccinated for measles last month.

Kotsagrelos, a pediatric medical assistant, told CNN he has seen a “dramatic increase” in vaccine skepticism firsthand since the 2024 election and RFK Jr.’s appointment as HHS Secretary.

“I have some doctors at my job who have been in practice in pediatrics going on 50 years, and they’ve said that this is the worst it’s ever been with vaccine hesitancy, with misinformation,” he said.

He has written letters to RFK Jr. explaining that his vaccine rhetoric has caused “unnecessary deaths” and “unnecessary stress” for parents.

That is translating into political change for people around him, Kotsagrelos said. People in his work and social circles who would have otherwise voted Republican are now leaning left, citing reasons like the return of measles as well as higher gas prices and economic downturn.

“They’ll kind of say like, ‘Well I’ll vote for whoever would keep my kids safe now,’ and that switched from people being against the Democratic Party,” he said.

A measles outbreak in South Carolina this past year “was definitely one of the main talking points among several subgroups of Annie Andrews supporters” during the primaries, said Scott Huffmon, executive director of Winthrop University’s Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research.

Although it has since dropped off the list of top issues in the Senate race, Andrews, the Democratic nominee and a pediatrician, has said that she was motivated to run for office by Kennedy’s confirmation to lead HHS, arguing that his public messaging and anti-vaccine advocacy eroded public trust in health institutions.

In Spartanburg County last month, Andrews drew applause when she said she’d push to impeach Kennedy if elected. Kennedy has not made any trips to South Carolina since the start of the measles outbreak there last October.

A New York Times/Siena poll puts Andrews in a dead heat with Republican Sen. Darline Graham at 48% among likely voters, making for an unexpectedly competitive race in the deeply red state. Graham was recently appointed to her seat after the death of her brother, Lindsey Graham.

Kathryn Harvey, the Democratic Party chair for Spartanburg County, the epicenter of the state’s measles outbreak that saw 940 cases, said that while it still comes up during town halls and panels Andrews has participated in, other issues have pushed their way to the forefront for voters since the area’s outbreak was declared over in April.

“I think for Annie as a candidate, it’s still top of mind because the outbreak happened on the heels of RFK’s leadership, and we’re just seeing that trickle down happen in our community and it’s also very much a product of the passing of our statehouse laws that relaxed the immunization in our schools,” Harvey said. “It’s just a matter of, is it making the top three issues across the state? And I would say the answer is no, just by proxy of where we are with gas prices and kind of the overarching Republican corruption.”

Besides Andrews, an unprecedented number of doctors and scientists are running for office up and down the ballot this year, noted Naughton. Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton and Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed — both doctors — have pointed to Kennedy when attacking the administration and Republicans on health.

This month, Burgess and another former Republican congressmen and doctor, Larry Bucshon of Indiana, warn in Stat News, a medical news outlet, that “silence on vaccines is becoming a dealbreaker for voters who would otherwise vote Republican” and that “Democratic candidates have wasted no time in turning the issue to their advantage.”

Yet RFK Jr.’s vaccine skepticism rhetoric resonates in some conservative communities that prioritize medical freedom, especially for religious reasons. Those can be tricky waters for Democrats to navigate.

Though more than 700 measles cases have been recorded in Utah since June 2025, a vein of support for medical freedom makes blaming the outbreak on MAHA-fanned vaccine skepticism a harder sell.

“There is a ton of this kind of self-determination autonomy, like, ‘I will decide, the government won’t decide,’ in this state,” said Democratic state Sen. Jen Plumb, who also works as an emergency room pediatrician and is running for reelection.

“I know I will alienate those people if I fully share with them why I care so much about vaccines because I will make it seem, whether I want to or not, like they don’t care as much about their kids,” she said. “That’s not going to help their kids or help me help them.”

CNN’s Austin Culpepper and Caitlin McCormack contributed to this report.

迈克尔·斯文森/盖蒂图片社

就在小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪及其“让美国再次健康”运动帮助唐纳德·特朗普总统入主白宫两年后，现任卫生与公众服务部部长正在凸显一个风向标州的政治脆弱性。

宾夕法尼亚州爆发的麻疹疫情使公共卫生成为攻击特朗普政府的尖锐议题，与生活成本和伊朗战争一起，成为选民的主要关注点，民主党人抓住了这一点。

在全国各地——包括今年已出现数百例麻疹病例的州——民主党候选人都在试图将民众对共和党在公共卫生问题上日益增长的不信任转化为政治优势。疫情最严重的地区集中在威斯康星州、犹他州和南卡罗来纳州等传统共和党选区——南卡罗来纳州可能会选出一位民主党参议员，她曾表示自己参选的部分原因是为了对抗肯尼迪。

一些人认为这是一个机会，可以借此凸显联邦政府疫苗政策变化造成的混乱，以及美国民众对卫生部长意见分歧的问题。这位卫生部长对疫苗安全性持怀疑态度，并否认免疫接种率下降导致感染迅速蔓延。

根据凯撒家庭基金会5月份的一项民调显示，更多登记选民信任民主党人而非共和党人来处理疫苗政策——41%对25%。60%的选民表示不认可肯尼迪担任卫生与公众服务部部长期间的表现。

“我们看到的是，选民们对小罗伯特·肯尼迪不科学的公共卫生方法感到非常反感，”肖内西·诺顿说道。他曾是宾夕法尼亚州的一位民主党国会候选人，也是314行动的创始人，这是一个为具有科学背景的民主党候选人提供资金的政治战略团体。

314 Action 已在至少五个州（包括宾夕法尼亚州）开展了一项耗资六位数的广告宣传活动，明确将竞争激烈的选举中的共和党人与小肯尼迪和不受欢迎的联邦政策联系起来。

这场运动始于 4 月，当时麻疹开始在宾夕法尼亚州蔓延，该组织的目标是宾夕法尼亚州第七国会选区，共和党在 2024 年以微弱优势赢得了该选区。

甚至一些共和党人也认为，选民对共和党在科学方面的信任度下降是一个问题。“选情胶着的选举确实不少。但每当选情胶着时，谁也不知道什么因素会最终左右某个选民的投票意向。”前德克萨斯州共和党国会议员、医生迈克尔·伯吉斯说道。“为什么要冒着疏远潜在支持者的风险呢？”他问道，指的是疫苗宣传方面的问题。

路透社/益普索9月份进行的一项调查采访了全国896名登记选民，结果显示，62%的人对麻疹疫情感到担忧，55%的人表示不赞成特朗普处理美国部分地区疫情的方式。

对于民主党及其支持者来说，小罗伯特·肯尼迪被视为主要的罪魁祸首。

诺顿说：“人们越是想起他实际说过的话和做过的事，以及共和党人没有采取任何措施来追究他的责任，我认为这就越能引起选民的共鸣。”

美国卫生与公众服务部未回应置评请求。

宾夕法尼亚州今年已有超过 1300 例麻疹病例和 5 例死亡，这场持续的健康危机将民主党州长乔什·夏皮罗与特朗普政府的公开斗争以及他今年 11 月的连任竞选联系在了一起。

今年夏天，肯尼迪采取了非同寻常的举动，质疑是否有人死于这种疾病，并暗示沙皮罗的幕僚在“散布恐慌”，夸大了疫情的严重性。此后，沙皮罗公开与联邦卫生官员发生争执。

马修·哈彻/盖蒂图片社

这场纷争甚至让该州的一些肯尼迪支持者也感到沮丧。一位在该州麻疹疫区服务的助产士告诉CNN，肯尼迪“否认科学”并且“歪曲了数据”。

“这样做只会造成更多混乱，”这位助产士说道。她表示，最近几周她几乎每天都会接诊麻疹病例。她要求匿名，理由是担心侵犯患者隐私。

这场辩论迫使沙皮罗的对手、州财政部长斯泰西·加里蒂向选民保证她支持疫苗，并与肯尼迪保持距离。此前，她曾与肯尼迪一起出现在哈里斯堡举行的“让美国再次健康”集会上——本月的一场辩论中，主持人也指出了这一点。

这是自麻疹开始蔓延以来，肯尼迪在宾夕法尼亚州举办的唯一一场 MAHA 活动。

“那主要是为了支持孩子们健康饮食，”加里蒂说。“但我自己已经接种了所有疫苗。我相信疫苗接种。”

在选票下方，314 Action 的广告将矛头指向宾夕法尼亚州一个竞争激烈的选区，声称现任共和党众议员瑞安·麦肯齐“不会挺身对抗特朗普和小罗伯特·肯尼迪”。

库克政治报告目前将该选区评为倾向民主党。

富兰克林与马歇尔学院本月进行的一项全州民意调查发现，70%的选民认为州政府应该采取更多措施鼓励疫苗接种。大多数民主党人、大多数独立选民以及近半数（49%）的共和党选民都持相同观点。

“对于选民来说，在权衡不断上涨的生活成本和对外战争时，这并不是一个关键问题，但这却是共和党候选人必须应对的不受欢迎政策清单上的另一项，”领导此次民意调查的学院民意研究中心主任伯伍德·约斯特说。

他说，选民们“确实在认真思考特朗普和特朗普政府”。“肯尼迪也是其中的一部分；他的政策声明也受到了人们的评判。”

安东尼·科特萨格雷洛斯和他的妻子住在匹兹堡地区，上个月他们带一岁的儿子接种了麻疹疫苗。

儿科医疗助理科特萨格雷洛斯告诉 CNN，自 2024 年大选和小罗伯特·肯尼迪被任命为卫生与公众服务部部长以来，他亲眼目睹了疫苗怀疑论的“急剧增加”。

他说：“我工作单位里有一些儿科医生，他们从医已有50年了，他们说，现在疫苗犹豫不决和错误信息泛滥的情况是前所未有的。”

他曾写信给小罗伯特·肯尼迪，解释说他对疫苗的言论造成了“不必要的死亡”和给父母带来的“不必要的压力”。

科特萨格雷洛斯说，这正在转化为他身边人的政治立场转变。他工作和社交圈中原本会投票给共和党的人现在倾向于左翼，他们给出的理由包括麻疹卷土重来、油价上涨和经济衰退。

他说：“他们会说，‘好吧，我会投票给任何能保障我孩子安全的人’，而这和人们反对民主党的态度截然不同。”

温斯洛普大学公共舆论与政策研究中心执行主任斯科特·赫夫蒙表示，去年南卡罗来纳州爆发的麻疹疫情“无疑是安妮·安德鲁斯支持者几个小组在初选期间的主要讨论话题之一”。

尽管疫苗接种问题已不再是参议院竞选中的首要议题，但民主党候选人、儿科医生安德鲁斯表示，肯尼迪被任命为卫生与公众服务部部长一事促使她竞选公职，她认为肯尼迪的公开言论和反疫苗倡导削弱了公众对医疗机构的信任。

上个月在斯帕坦堡县，安德鲁斯表示如果当选将推动弹劾肯尼迪，此言一出，掌声雷动。自去年10月南卡罗来纳州爆发麻疹疫情以来，肯尼迪一直没有到访过该州。

《纽约时报》/锡耶纳学院的民调显示，安德鲁斯与共和党参议员达琳·格雷厄姆在可能投票的选民中支持率均为48%，势均力敌，这使得这场在共和党传统票仓纽约州举行的选举出乎意料地竞争激烈。格雷厄姆是在其兄长林赛·格雷厄姆去世后被任命接任参议员席位的。

斯帕坦堡县民主党主席凯瑟琳·哈维表示，虽然在安德鲁斯参加的市政厅会议和小组讨论中，麻疹问题仍然会被提及，但自该地区疫情在 4 月份宣布结束以来，其他问题已经成为选民关注的焦点。斯帕坦堡县是该州麻疹疫情的中心，共报告了 940 例病例。

“我认为对安妮这位候选人来说，这仍然是她最关心的问题，因为疫情爆发正值罗伯特·肯尼迪执政时期之后，我们现在正目睹疫情在我们社区的蔓延，这很大程度上也是由于州议会通过的放松学校免疫接种政策造成的，”哈维说道。“问题在于，这是否是全州最受关注的三大问题之一？我认为答案是否定的，这可以从我们目前的油价以及共和党普遍存在的腐败问题中看出。”

诺顿指出，除了安德鲁斯之外，今年参选的医生和科学家人数空前，涵盖了各级选举。俄亥俄州州长候选人艾米·阿克顿和密歇根州参议员候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德——两人都是医生——在抨击政府和共和党在医疗卫生方面的政策时，都提到了肯尼迪。

本月，伯吉斯和另一位前共和党国会议员、印第安纳州医生拉里·布克肖恩在医学新闻媒体 Stat News 上警告说，“对疫苗保持沉默正在成为那些原本会投票给共和党的选民的决断因素”，并且“民主党候选人已经迅速利用这个问题为自己谋利”。

然而，小罗伯特·肯尼迪对疫苗的怀疑言论在一些重视医疗自由的保守派社区引起了共鸣，尤其是一些出于宗教原因的保守派社区。这对民主党人来说可能是一个棘手的问题。

尽管自 2025 年 6 月以来，犹他州已记录了 700 多例麻疹病例，但对医疗自由的支持使得将疫情爆发归咎于 MAHA 煽动的疫苗怀疑论变得更加难以令人信服。

“在这个州，有很多这种自我决定的自主权，比如‘我会做决定，政府不会做决定’，”民主党州参议员詹·普拉姆说道，她同时也是一名急诊室儿科医生，目前正在竞选连任。

“我知道如果我完全和他们分享我为什么如此关心疫苗，我会疏远他们，因为不管我愿不愿意，这都会让他们觉得他们不太关心自己的孩子，”她说。“这对他们的孩子没有好处，对我帮助他们也没有好处。”

CNN的奥斯汀·卡尔佩珀和凯特琳·麦科马克对本报道亦有贡献。