The second is that, to a degree Kennedy hasn’t much discussed, he is depending on the states for his success. That means progressives have a chance of blocking Kennedy with a state-based campaign.
A March NBC News poll found that 71 percent of Republicans identified themselves as MAGA supporters. But among all Americans, the number was half that, just 36 percent. The MAGA movement is hyperpolarized.
That’s not the case with MAHA. It’s a much looser movement than MAGA, with less name recognition and without the same ideological foundation. But in a survey conducted by the right-leaning Center for Excellence in Polling, support for MAHA crossed party lines. In its May survey, 95 percent of the sample wanted to ensure kids had fresh vegetables and fruits with every school lunch, 96 percent wanted warning labels on foods with high levels of chemicals, and 88 percent wanted clinical proof of new COVID-19 vaccine boosters efficacy before the Food and Drug Administration grants approval.
Kennedy has endorsed some of these principles; he has rejected others. But the closer MAHA gets to the militantly ideological MAGA, the more the bipartisan base begins to dissolve; nothing melts it away faster than vaccine mandates. A Washington Post-KFF poll in September showed 81 percent of parents favored vaccine requirements for polio and measles, with support stretched across party lines.
That helps to explain why Trump has found himself in a delicate dance in dealing with Kennedy. Kennedy has charged that the COVID-19 vaccine “was the deadliest vaccine ever made.” He also campaigned to end fluoridation of water across the country, even though dentists warned that the end of fluoridation could lead to an explosion of cavities. Kids could get 25.4 million more cavities in the next five years, according to one study. Some states are going along with Kennedy on fluoride; most are not.
Then there’s the potential race to end vaccine mandates, which is also a state-by-state movement. Florida proposed to end mandates for vaccines in order for kids to attend school. The state’s surgeon general, Joseph A. Ladapo, told a news conference, “Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body?”
All 50 states have mandates for at least some vaccines, but all of the states also allow a varying collection of exemptions for religious or personal reasons. Thanks in part to Kennedy, the rate of exemptions has been rising. For kindergarteners, the number whose parents claim exemptions has risen from 2.5 percent five years ago to 3.6 percent for 2024-2025. Seventeen states had exemption rates of more than 5 percent.
On the other side, public health officials have long contended that a vaccination rate of 95 percent or more is essential to create herd immunity, which greatly reduces the chances that a disease outbreak can quickly spread. The rising rate of exemptions — and the Florida plan to end all mandates — risks igniting outbreaks of childhood diseases everywhere. Some MAGA red states are firmly in the MAHA camp. But there are lots of MAHA warriors in blue states, but they’re pushing in the opposite direction.
Kennedy helped put Trump over the top in 2024 by delivering MAHA voters to his corner, in exchange for which Trump made him a cabinet secretary and told him to “go wild.” No matter how much wilding Kennedy does, however, real changes on these issues depend on state actions.
That leads the Trump administration to a fork in the road: going down the MAHA path, with attacks on food additives and campaigns for healthy eating, which wouldn’t stir the Trump base; or going down the MAGA road against vaccines, which risks undermining the bipartisan MAHA coalition.
That’s what creates the opportunity for blue-state leaders, who can stake their policies on evidence-driven science and the healthy-living side of the MAHA movement. Red states might be working to pull mandates down. But blue states such as California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington have allied to support vaccines and promote science-based policy. They are just as convinced that they are the ones making America healthy again. And they’re hoping their movement spreads faster than diseases do.
They can gather up the MAHA constituency and drive a wedge to separate them from the unyielding MAGA cohort. Kennedy himself, of course, is a scion of one of the nation’s most celebrated Democratic families. His career reflects the fact that vaccine skepticism was once common on the left (but is no longer). His militance might just give blue-state leaders the opportunity they’re looking for to carve away some MAGA supporters who could be teetering on the fence.
The tension will define whether the MAGA coalition is shaky; how effectively the blue states will be in building their own MAHA base; and whether blue staters can split off at least some of the MAHA constituency that was so important in helping elect Trump in 2024.
We know which way MAGA is leaning in 2026, but it’s much less certain how much cohesion MAHA will have. Make America Healthy Again could therefore prove pivotal in tipping the scales in the midterm congressional elections — and in the battle for the presidency already taking shape.
Governing’s opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing’s editors or management.
