A record number of health professionals are running for office. Could they help heal US politics?

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At least 125 doctors, nurses and public health experts are on the ballot for Tuesday’s midterm elections — an unprecedented number from fields that historically offered fewer paths to elected office than boardrooms and courtrooms.

Their campaigns emerged in the aftermath of Covid-19, when doctors and health officials were celebrated at first, overwhelmed by work and tragedy for years, and in some cases, targeted because of distrust or politics around their messages.

Some candidates say they realized during that time how their training and expertise in health and science were more closely tied to government and politics than they’d thought.

“One of the things you learn to do in medicine is to listen and sit with somebody in pain and help them to clarify what the opportunities are, based on your knowledge about how the body or their health works, and I find that the work of politics is really quite similar,” said Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a former health director for Wayne County, Michigan, who is running for US Senate against Republican Mike Rogers.

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Dr. Amy Acton, a preventive medicine specialist who served as Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s high-profile public health director in Ohio, is running for governor as a Democrat against biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican.

Democrat Xavier Becerra, a former congressman who served as President Joe Biden’s secretary of health and human services, is vying for the governor in California against Republican media personality Steve Hilton.

Dr. Annie Andrews, a Democrat and pediatrician in South Carolina, is running for US Senate against Republican Sen. Darline Graham.

There are candidates with industry experience too, including healthcare attorney Cinde Warmington, a Democrat running to be New Hampshire’s governor, and Republican Rick Jackson, founder and CEO of Jackson Healthcare, who’s running to be Georgia’s governor.

“I haven’t seen anything exactly like this before,” said historian Dr. Kristoffer Shields , director of the Eagleton Center on the American Governor at Rutgers University. “The link between science and politics has always been sort of weak.”

Less than 10% of the current Congress has a medical, public health or engineering degree. By comparison, 47% of senators and 31% of House members have law degrees.

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Congress does have tiny but active Republican and Democratic doctors’ caucuses. Four people with health backgrounds — all Republicans and doctors — serve in the US Senate: Wyoming’s John Barrasso, Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, Kansas’ Roger Marshall and Kentucky’s Rand Paul. The House has 17 physicians, four dentists, two pharmacists , a nurse practitioner , an optometrist and a rehabilitation therapist.

At the state level, the ranks are even thinner, and they’ve been shrinking. Only about 3% of state legislators had medical, science or engineering backgrounds as of March 2025, according to a Rutgers analysis of the Scientists in State Politics Database. That’s down 25% from the year before.

Hawaii’s Josh Green is the sole US governor with a medical degree, and no governors have a public health degree. No doctor has ever been president; the ninth president, William Henry Harrison, went to medical school but dropped out when he ran out of money to pay for it, and became a soldier instead.

Something seemed to change this year, said Erik Polyak, executive director of 314 Action, a political action committee that recruits, trains and helps Democrats with science, tech, engineering and math backgrounds get elected. His group has been flooded with support requests.

“We’ve had over 700 applications from people who want to run for office. To put that in context, it’s usually been like 200 every election cycle,” Polyak said.

The American Medical Association has long encouraged people in the profession to get involved in politics. It has two political education programs: a candidate workshop and a campaign school for members. Cassidy and Barrasso are graduates, as are US Reps. Ami Bera and Mariannette Miller-Meeks.

“Advocacy is strongest when physicians themselves are in the room where decisions are made. As is often noted, ‘If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu,’” AMA President Dr. Willie Underwood said in an email to CNN.

“More physicians running for office is a good sign. We don’t think of ourselves as politicians, but we advocate for our patients every day because of prior authorization or other obstacles that prevent them from receiving care. We are accustomed to relentless advocacy.”

Public health saw a similar surge in candidate interest.

“I started getting calls in January and February a year ago, asking me for advice,” said Dr. Kristin Hook, a former staffer at the US National Institutes of Health and the US Government Accountability Office. She lost the first time she ran as a Democrat for Texas’ 21st Congressional District, in 2024, but is on the ballot again this year for the same seat.

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“People from all across the country wanted to run, and they wanted to know what I did and what I learned,” she said. “I had these little chats with a bunch of public health folks, all different, and many former feds who wanted to prevent what we’re seeing right now.”

One strong motivator for Hook to run for office was what she sees as an attack on science by the Trump administration.

“Our country should be great. Our country should be pro-science, pro-innovation, and science keeps us safe. It protects us. It leads to wonderful discoveries, and this administration has completely burned all of that down,” she said.

Hook points to the firing of thousands of federal doctors and scientists, cuts to billions in research funding, the removal of entire government datasets and public health websites, and the undermining of longstanding public health measures like water fluoridation and childhood vaccines .

Along with gas prices, healthcare is the biggest household expense worrying voters, polls show . Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” is expected to cut insurance to 10 million more people , one of the biggest rollbacks in health insurance coverage ever, experts say .

Many of the candidates with healthcare backgrounds, like most Americans surveyed, say they disapprove of the current leadership at HHS.

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“HHS is not a place for science deniers or science skeptics,” Becerra told CNN earlier this year. “Why would you get rid of some of our best scientists and doctors and health professionals?

“I think it’s a prescription for a real disaster,” he added. “We deal with enough natural disasters, having to help with hurricanes, having to address pandemics, that’s bad enough. But when you put on top of that these man-made disasters, then you know that America’s health and America’s economy are at risk.”

The pandemic was also a major driver for many of the healthcare professionals now seeking office.

“They’ve been under heavy political fire and either survived it or have moved on and learned from it, and it’s made them that much stronger,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

Typically, public health leaders play a vital role that’s out of the spotlight. But the pandemic pushed many onto everyone’s television. For some, the attention brought death threats and hate mail, and a record number quit . Others emerged as local folk heroes.

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Acton says she faced a handful of protesters at her home but mostly felt support from Ohioans, many of whom watched her daily briefings with DeWine, the Republican governor. During the pandemic, her image appeared on T-shirts and a mural, and a bobblehead ad quoted the Dayton Daily News describing her as “Ohio’s trusted face during the pandemic.” A 2020 New York Times editorial called Acton “the leader we wish we all had.”

“The love in this state was so much greater than any of the hate,” she said. “It was an honor to work alongside Gov. Mike DeWine. We were totally focused on saving lives, and we definitely put people’s health and well-being over politics.”

But it may be hard for public health leaders and doctors to win over voters aggrieved by pandemic-era vaccine policies, masking rules and shuttered schools and businesses.

“Especially on the Republican side, I think there’s a lot more distrust of the medical profession post-Covid,” said Woodrow Johnston, a political consultant for Republican politicians. “A lot of Republicans feel they were misled or even lied to when it came to government shutdowns.”

Polls show that Democrats have more confidence in scientists than Republicans. However, one Pew poll found that trust dipped during the pandemic and has ticked up more recently. Another 2026 Pew survey found that scientists are more trusted to act in the public interest than journalists, business leaders and elected officials.

Not everyone realizes how much political skill public health leaders must wield to win support for their solutions, Freeman says. The pandemic tested many of them.

“We serve everyone everywhere in every single community, no matter what their political leaning,” she said. “To have somebody with all of this wealth of experience in different areas would help all across the board, and not just health programs. Even just to help people understand that healthiness really drives economic prosperity.”

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Johnston said he has helped more Republican candidates with medical or public health backgrounds win office lately. Such candidates can connect with certain voters.

“Sometimes, smart people like smart people,” Johnston said.

And their scientific expertise is needed, said Shields, the historian. Some problems are straightforward health issues, such as lack of access to care. Other problems are more existential: how to govern AI so it’s safe, how to find renewable energy and how to address the climate crisis.

“There’s so many issues that we’re facing where we need people with scientific expertise in the room,” he said.

Acton says that having health professionals in higher office can help people’s health, perhaps even more than an individual doctor can help a patient. She thinks of the average lifespan in the US: Advances in medicine and technology account for some improvements, but a lot of it’s also due to “things that we had to solve together.”

“It was things like clean water, safe food, child labor laws, public school for every kid, traffic safety laws – the list goes on and on,” Acton said. “That’s what government’s role is: a big catalyzer and convener.”

She said it was clear to her while working with DeWine during Covid-19 that the governor’s job was about protecting the health and well-being of everyone.

“Just like being a doctor, we’re for all patients. Being governor is actually about improving those social and economic and environmental determinants of our well-being and our prosperity,” Acton said. “It’s funny. You think of it as so different, but I really realized it’s actually exactly what I’ve been trained to do.”

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至少有 125 名医生、护士和公共卫生专家出现在周二的中期选举选票上——这是一个前所未有的数字，因为这些领域历来比董事会和法庭提供更少的当选机会。

他们的宣传活动是在新冠疫情之后出现的，当时医生和卫生官员起初受到赞扬，多年来一直被工作和悲剧压得喘不过气来，在某些情况下，由于人们对他们的信息不信任或出于政治原因，他们成为了攻击目标。

一些候选人表示，在那段时间里，他们意识到自己在健康和科学方面的培训和专业知识与政府和政治的联系比他们想象的要紧密得多。

“在医学中，你学到的其中一件事就是倾听和陪伴痛苦的人，并根据你对人体或他们健康状况的了解，帮助他们弄清楚有哪些机会。我发现政治工作实际上非常相似，”阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德博士说道。他曾是密歇根州韦恩县的卫生局长，目前正在竞选美国参议员，与共和党人迈克·罗杰斯竞争。

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曾担任俄亥俄州共和党州长迈克·德瓦恩 (Mike DeWine) 的知名公共卫生主任的预防医学专家艾米·阿克顿 (Amy Acton) 博士，将作为民主党候选人竞选州长，与共和党生物技术亿万富翁维韦克·拉马斯瓦米 (Vivek Ramaswamy) 展开角逐。

曾任国会议员、并担任乔·拜登总统卫生与公众服务部部长的民主党人泽维尔·贝塞拉正在加州竞选州长，他的对手是共和党媒体名人史蒂夫·希尔顿。

南卡罗来纳州的民主党儿科医生安妮·安德鲁斯博士正在竞选美国参议员，她的对手是共和党参议员达琳·格雷厄姆。

也有一些候选人拥有行业经验，包括医疗保健律师辛迪·沃明顿（Cinde Warmington），她是民主党人，正在竞选新罕布什尔州州长；以及共和党人里克·杰克逊（Rick Jackson），他是杰克逊医疗保健公司的创始人兼首席执行官，正在竞选佐治亚州州长。

“我以前从未见过这样的情况，”罗格斯大学伊格尔顿美国州长研究中心主任、历史学家克里斯托弗·希尔兹博士说。“科学与政治之间的联系一直比较薄弱。”

目前国会中，拥有医学、公共卫生或工程学位的议员不足10%。相比之下，参议员中有47%拥有法学学位，众议员中有31%拥有法学学位。

选民就经济、医疗保健和德克萨斯州市政厅的互相攻击等问题向塔拉里科施压

国会确实设有规模虽小但活跃的共和党和民主党医生党团。四位具有医疗背景的人士——均为共和党籍医生——在美国参议院任职：怀俄明州的约翰·巴拉索、路易斯安那州的比尔·卡西迪、堪萨斯州的罗杰·马歇尔和肯塔基州的兰德·保罗。众议院则有17位医生、4位牙医、2位药剂师、1位执业护士、1位验光师和1位康复治疗师。

在州一级，拥有医学、科学或工程背景的人员更加稀少，而且还在不断减少。根据罗格斯大学对“州政治科学家数据库”的分析，截至2025年3月，只有约3%的州议员拥有医学、科学或工程背景。这一比例比上一年下降了25%。

夏威夷州州长乔什·格林是美国唯一一位拥有医学学位的州长，而没有一位州长拥有公共卫生学位。历史上没有一位医生担任过总统；第九任总统威廉·亨利·哈里森曾就读医学院，但因无力支付学费而辍学，转而参军。

“今年似乎有些变化，”314行动组织执行主任埃里克·波利亚克说道。该组织是一个政治行动委员会，致力于招募、培训并帮助具有科学、技术、工程和数学背景的民主党人赢得选举。他的组织收到了大量支持请求。

“我们已经收到700多份竞选公职的申请。相比之下，通常每个选举周期只有200份左右，”波利亚克说。

美国医学会长期以来一直鼓励医学界人士参与政治。该协会设有两项政治教育项目：候选人培训班和竞选培训班，均面向会员开放。卡西迪和巴拉索都是该项目的毕业生，美国众议员阿米·贝拉和玛丽安内特·米勒-米克斯也是如此。

“当医生们亲自参与决策时，他们的倡导作用最为强大。正如人们常说的，‘如果你不在谈判桌上，你就会成为别人的盘中餐’，”美国医学会主席威利·安德伍德博士在给CNN的电子邮件中写道。

“更多医生竞选公职是个好兆头。我们并不认为自己是政治家，但我们每天都在为患者奔走呼吁，因为他们常常因为事先审批或其他障碍而无法获得治疗。我们已经习惯了坚持不懈地争取权益。”

公共卫生领域也出现了类似的求职者兴趣激增的情况。

“一年前的1月和2月，我开始接到很多电话，向我咨询意见，”克里斯汀·胡克博士说道。她曾在美国国立卫生研究院和美国政府问责局工作。2024年，她首次以民主党候选人的身份竞选德克萨斯州第21选区国会众议员，但最终落败。今年，她再次参选，竞选同一席位。

乔尔·安赫尔·华雷斯/路透社

“全国各地的人都想参选，他们想知道我做了什么，学到了什么，”她说。“我和许多公共卫生领域的专家进行了简短的交流，他们背景各不相同，其中很多是前联邦政府官员，他们都希望阻止我们现在看到的这种情况发生。”

促使胡克竞选公职的一个重要原因是她认为特朗普政府对科学进行了攻击。

“我们的国家本应伟大。我们的国家本应支持科学、支持创新，而科学能够保障我们的安全，保护我们，带来伟大的发现，但本届政府却彻底摧毁了这一切，”她说道。

胡克指出，数千名联邦医生和科学家被解雇，数十亿美元的研究经费被削减，整个政府数据集和公共卫生网站被删除，以及长期以来的公共卫生措施（如饮用水加氟和儿童疫苗）遭到破坏。

民调显示，除了汽油价格，医疗保健是选民最担心的家庭开支。专家表示，特朗普的“宏大法案”预计将使1000万人失去医保，这将是有史以来医保覆盖范围的最大幅度缩减之一。

与大多数受访美国人一样，许多具有医疗保健背景的候选人表示，他们不赞成美国卫生与公众服务部目前的领导层。

格蕾丝·维迪亚特马贾/CNN

“卫生与公众服务部不是科学否定者或科学怀疑论者的地方，”贝塞拉今年早些时候告诉CNN。“为什么要解雇我们一些最优秀的科学家、医生和卫生专业人员呢？”

“我认为这无异于自掘坟墓，”他补充道。“我们已经要应对足够多的自然灾害，比如飓风、疫情等等，这已经够糟糕的了。但如果再加上人为灾害，那么美国的健康和经济都将面临风险。”

疫情也是许多医疗保健专业人士寻求公职的主要驱动因素。

“他们曾遭受过巨大的政治压力，要么挺了过来，要么从中吸取了教训，这使他们变得更加强大，”全国县市卫生官员协会首席执行官洛里·特雷梅尔·弗里曼说。

通常情况下，公共卫生领导者扮演着至关重要的角色，却鲜为人知。但疫情让许多人走到了聚光灯下。对一些人来说，这种关注带来了死亡威胁和仇恨邮件，辞职人数也创下历史新高。而另一些人则成为了当地的民间英雄。

Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

阿克顿表示，她在自家门前遇到了一些抗议者，但主要感受到的是来自俄亥俄州民众的支持，其中许多人观看了她与共和党州长德瓦恩的每日疫情简报会。疫情期间，她的形象出现在T恤衫和壁画上，一款摇头娃娃广告引用了《代顿每日新闻》的报道，称她为“疫情期间俄亥俄州值得信赖的面孔”。2020年，《纽约时报》的一篇社论称阿克顿是“我们都希望拥有的领导人”。

“这个州的爱远远大于仇恨，”她说。“能与州长迈克·德瓦恩共事是我的荣幸。我们全心全意致力于拯救生命，并将人民的健康和福祉置于政治之上。”

但公共卫生领导人和医生可能很难赢得那些对疫情期间的疫苗政策、口罩规定以及学校和企业关闭感到不满的选民的支持。

“尤其是在共和党方面，我认为新冠疫情后人们对医疗行业的信任度大大降低，”共和党政治顾问伍德罗·约翰斯顿说。“很多共和党人觉得，在政府停摆问题上，他们被误导甚至被欺骗了。”

民调显示，民主党人比共和党人更信任科学家。然而，皮尤研究中心的一项民调发现，疫情期间公众对科学家的信任度有所下降，但最近又有所回升。皮尤研究中心2026年的另一项调查发现，公众更信任科学家会维护公众利益，而不是记者、商界领袖和民选官员。

弗里曼说，并非所有人都意识到公共卫生领导者必须具备多么高超的政治技巧才能赢得民众对其解决方案的支持。新冠疫情考验了他们中的许多人。

“我们服务于每个社区的每一个人，无论他们的政治倾向如何，”她说。“拥有如此丰富跨领域经验的人才，对各方面都有益处，不仅仅是医疗卫生项目。即使只是帮助人们理解健康是经济繁荣的真正驱动力，也大有裨益。”

安娜·莫尼梅克/盖蒂图片社

特朗普政府急于稳定肯尼迪领导下的卫生与公众服务部，着眼于中期选举。

约翰斯顿表示，他最近帮助更多具有医学或公共卫生背景的共和党候选人赢得了选举。这类候选人更容易与特定选民群体建立联系。

约翰斯顿说：“有时候，聪明人喜欢聪明人。”

历史学家希尔兹表示，他们的科学专长至关重要。有些问题是直接的健康问题，例如医疗资源匮乏。另一些问题则关乎人类存亡：如何安全有效地管理人工智能，如何寻找可再生能源，以及如何应对气候危机。

他说：“我们面临的很多问题都需要具备科学专业知识的人士参与讨论。”

阿克顿表示，让医疗专业人士担任更高级别的职务，或许比单个医生对患者的帮助更大，更能促进民众健康。她以美国人的平均寿命为例：医学和技术的进步固然带来了一些改善，但很大程度上也归功于“我们必须共同解决的问题”。

“比如清洁饮用水、安全食品、童工法、每个孩子都能上公立学校、交通安全法——等等等等，”阿克顿说。“这就是政府的角色：一个重要的催化剂和召集者。”

她说，在新冠疫情期间与德瓦恩共事的过程中，她清楚地认识到，州长的职责是保护每个人的健康和福祉。

“就像当医生一样，我们为所有病人服务。当州长实际上就是为了改善那些影响我们福祉和繁荣的社会、经济和环境因素，”阿克顿说。“这很有趣。你可能觉得这两者截然不同，但我真正意识到，这其实正是我接受训练的目的。”