“A lot of people had said they weren’t going to vote, and by not voting, they handed the win to the Democrats,” says Zen Honeycutt, the founder and executive director of Moms Across America, a group closely linked to the MAHA movement. “That’s what happens when you don’t fulfill your promises to the American people. They won’t show up for you.” 

Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit health-advocacy group, says it is hard to know without more specific voting data just how much of an actual impact MAHA had on the midterm results. But he says the movement is large enough that the votes of even a fraction of MAHA supporters would have been sufficient to “have made a decisive difference.” 

The MAHA movement gained national traction during the 2024 presidential campaign when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed Trump and brought his health-focused coalition into the Make America Great Again (MAGA) orbit. Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer and longtime vaccine skeptic, was tapped by Trump to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Kennedy has since faced widespread criticism from doctors and scientists for his efforts to slash U.S. vaccine recommendations and research funding for vaccines. Still, Kennedy and MAHA retain national influence. An October survey found that American voters viewed Kennedy more favorably than many leading political figures including Trump, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. A KFF poll in May found that 41% of U.S. adults support the MAHA movement. However, most U.S. adults surveyed said they didn’t agree with the Trump Administration's handling of vaccines. Despite Kennedy’s attacks on the childhood immunization schedule, Americans across party lines have expressed overwhelming support for childhood vaccines.