The Make America Healthy Again movement scored one of its biggest wins of the cycle this month after its endorsed candidate, businessman Zach Lahn, defeated Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-IA), whom President Donald Trump backed, in the Iowa GOP gubernatorial primary.
The win was a rare moment when a Trump-endorsed candidate lost their primary and a clear indication that MAHA is willing to spend its political capital, even if it means going against the president.
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In the final stretch of the campaign, MAHA PAC, an outside group backing movement-aligned candidates, launched a text message campaign reaching nearly 350,000 likely Iowa GOP voters and a voicemail campaign that reached more than 83,000 cellphones. The PAC also made 40,500 get-out-the-vote phone calls and conducted three rounds of robocalls to more than 36,000 landlines on behalf of Lahn.
The diverse coalition that makes up MAHA began under the leadership of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during his 2024 presidential campaign, first as a Democrat, then an independent, before eventually endorsing Trump’s campaign. But as tensions with the Trump administration have grown, MAHA wants to assert a larger role not just in 2026, but in 2028 and beyond.
“We don’t tell people how to vote, but moms have clearly demonstrated that we are not beholden to a political party,” said Zen Honeycutt, the founder and executive director of the Moms Across America Movement. “MAHA is not owned by one particular person. It’s not owned by Kennedy; it’s not owned by Trump.”
“Our mission is to champion policy and public servants who put children, health, safety, and America’s future first. And that’s exactly what Zach Lahn is doing, and why we’re so thrilled that he won,” Honeycutt said.
MAHA’s support for Lahn was contingent on his opposition to glyphosate, an issue that led to frustrations with the White House as the Supreme Court considers the Monsanto Company v. Durnell case. The Trump administration supported Bayer, the maker of RoundUp, which manufactures the herbicide glyphosate, the main chemical in RoundUp. The president also previously signed an executive order shielding manufacturers from liability related to glyphosate.
“With Trump signing his executive order, where he said that glyphosate is essential to our food supply, it kind of pissed a lot of people off,” said Claire Dooley, a prominent MAHA mother and documentary filmmaker, who praised Lahn for opposing toxic chemicals.
Lahn’s victory over the establishment could be the start of a new political movement as MAHA looks to races to boost health-conscious lawmakers.
“I think this is just the beginning, really,” said Dooley. “And as we move into the next election and whoever is [in] the next presidential race … I think things are really going to kick off, and we’re going to see a lot of this happening, which could be great.”
Unlike the Make America Great Again coalition, MAHA has shown a willingness to break with Trump and the broader GOP. It could complicate efforts for the GOP to keep control of the House and Senate after Trump widened the coalition in 2024 to win back the White House.
Some Democrats, such as Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), have begun publicly pushing the party to woo MAHA voters ahead of the midterm elections. Booker says MAHA’s advocacy for healthier nutrition and combating chronic diseases is an admirable effort. But differences over key MAHA issues such as COVID-19 vaccines also complicate that effort.
“I think that the MAHA movement is not strictly aligned with President Trump in the same way as his base is,” said Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University public health law professor who was previously removed from a National Institutes of Health advisory board. “But MAHA still supports the president and Secretary Kennedy on most issues. Yet it is fully prepared to break on its core issues like vaccines and glyphosate.”
“At the margins, MAHA voters could cross over to the Democrats,” Gostin added. “But their views and political inclinations align much closer to the GOP and especially the MAGA movement.”
GOP strategist Matt Dole similarly suggested that voters likely view MAHA and MAGA in the same vein, and he cast doubt that Democrats could win over the MAHA cohort.
“I know the group may have nuance, but the average voter in a Republican primary this year sees it as an extension of Trump,” he said. “MAHA may be setting itself up as a place where displaced MAGA coalition members can come and have real influence on really important issues.”
Focus groups that Cygnal data and insights pollster Brent Buchanan has conducted show that millennial and Generation X women and men, who are likely to decide key electoral races, are amenable to MAHA issues, although the coalition’s vaccine skepticism is not popular.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic upended the nation, a breakdown in trust has fueled sentiment like MAHA’s anti-institutional fervor, a factor that helped propel Trump to power. The November midterm elections and the 2028 presidential election could present opportunities for MAHA to boost lawmakers who rebel against the establishment.
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“It really is a movement of the people against the institutions, and that has been the defining factor of most political battles,” said Buchanan. “They’re fed up. They’re fed up with the media, they’re fed up with government, they’re fed up with big corporations.”
If Republicans are going to keep their relationship with MAHA, Buchanan suggested GOP lawmakers tailor their MAHA messaging to “the parts that are broadly popular, not the parts that only speak to small portions or actually repel people, like the anti-vaccine stuff.”
