Midterms, rift with moms may be 'death knell' of MAHA-Trump alliance

Tiffany Cianci considers herself a MAHA mom.

She was an early advocate of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement, which brought together “crunchy” moms, medical freedom activists, anti-vaccine communities and environmentalists. As a TikTok personality with more than 320,000 followers, Cianci conducted social media town halls with Kennedy and says his promise to combat chronic childhood diseases by reducing environmental toxins and ultra-processed foods spoke to her.

The disparate coalition Kennedy forged went on to help power President Donald Trump's return to the White House.

But Cianci is one of many leaders in the MAHA coalition who no longer trust Kennedy's stewardship of the movement and don't feel tethered to the Republican Party – a rift that's growing just as midterm elections draw near and that some Democrats are looking to tap into.

“Republicans did not buy MAHA voters. They rented them,” Cianci said. “They had to fulfill promises to keep them.”

Earlier this month, Cianci released a MAHA Scorecard tracking whether the Trump administration had fulfilled 42 promises.

The verdict? Zero promises kept, five partially kept promises and 37 broken promises.

On Oct. 22, Calley Means, one of Kennedy's main advisers at the Department of Health and Human Services and a long time MAHA ally, quit the Trump administration.

"The past two years have seen historic policy and cultural change to confront the chronic disease crisis and healthcare incentives that profit from us being sick," Means said in a statement to USA TODAY. "This movement is in the first inning and just getting started."

But behind the scenes, Means had grown frustrated with how "special interest and corporate capture were preventing real progress," said Vani Hari, a food activist and a close associate of Means.

Blindsided and frustrated by 'ZERO meaningful action'

Cianci's scorecard, for instance, notes that the MAHA Commission, created by Trump and chaired by Kennedy, released a report in May 2025 highlighting the health risks of environmental chemicals to children.

Hari and other MAHA activists say they were shocked by Trump's February executive order to increase the production of glyphosate, a widely used weedkiller believed to be a carcinogen. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that Bayer, the manufacturer of weedkiller Roundup, does not have to put a cancer warning label on products that contain the chemical.

Hari said Means was "blindsided" by the glyphosate executive order.

Then in August, a Kennedy-led initiative to create a federal definition of "ultra-processed food," which had been submitted for review to the Office of Management and Budget, was supposed to be unveiled at an event at the Health and Human Services building, with Hari making a speech.

"I was briefed by the head of the FDA that this white paper was going to come out," said Hari, who is known as the "Food Babe" and has run campaigns against food companies centered on ingredients and transparency for more than a decade. "I wrote my speech based on the definition coming out. And right before the event, I was told that it was getting pulled."

Asked for a comment on the MAHA Scorecard, Emily Hilliard, a Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman, said the administration had “advanced MAHA across the federal government.”

Hilliard pointed to an overhaul of federal dietary guidelines and the yet-to-be-finalized federal definition of ultra-processed foods, and said the administration has invested more than $1 billion in regenerative agriculture and farm modernization.

'The coalition the president created has shattered'

The MAHA coalition could have significant sway.

About 41% of U.S. adults say they support the Make America Healthy Again movement, according to a KFF Health Tracking Poll released in May. A majority of Americans said there is not enough regulation of chemical additives in food (75%) or of pesticides used in agriculture (64%) in the U.S., and most adults expressed distrust in agricultural, food and pharmaceutical companies to act in the public’s best interest.

Kennedy has been a vocal critic of so-called Big Food and Big Pharma, blaming them for Americans' high rates of chronic ailments like Type 2 diabetes and accusing the industries of profiting by keeping Americans sick.

At the same time, confidence in the government agencies that are tasked with regulating these industries is low across parties, with about a third of the public expressing confidence in the FDA (36%) and the EPA (36%) to act independently without outside interference, according to the KFF poll.

Hari said it would be a “pipe dream” to imagine Republicans would have as much MAHA support this year as they did in 2024.

“The coalition the president created has shattered,” she said.

Kennedy ran for president as a Democrat in 2024, before switching to an independent and eventually endorsing Trump. When he joined the Trump camp, he brought with him the MAHA voters while Trump promised to let Kennedy “go wild” on health, food and medicine.

Activists backing only the 'most MAHA candidates'

Hari said despite initial enthusiasm when Kennedy obtained voluntary commitments from some food companies to remove food dyes, there have been no lasting regulations on food chemicals.

“We see how corporate interests are stopping most progress, the very thing that this administration vowed to fight,” she said.

Hari said MAHA voters will either “not vote at all or become selective voters, supporting individual candidates with strong records on food safety, pesticides and children's health rather than voting along party lines.”

The "most MAHA candidates," according to Hari, are Republicans Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general who is running for a U.S. Senate seat, and Zach Lahn, the nominee for governor in Iowa.

Indeed, MAHA Action PAC donated $1.5 million to Lahn's campaign and is deploying MAHA volunteers for a 15-day field program across Iowa. MAHA PAC added another $150,000 for Lahn.

MAHA PAC is backing six candidates other than Lahn, almost all of whom are Republican.

Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, of Florida, is one of the candidates supported by MAHA PAC.

Luna told USA TODAY that she cares about MAHA because, as a new mother, she understands the direct impact chemicals can have on children. Earlier this year, she led the push to strip controversial pro-pesticide policies from the GOP-crafted farm bill, threatening to "slaughter" the legislation unless the provisions were removed.

“Any mom can relate,” she said. “I will continue to champion these causes even if it means holding my own party accountable on them."

Elizabeth Kucinich, who worked on Kennedy’s presidential campaign and whose husband, Dennis Kucinich, served as campaign manager, said “MAHA is a mandate, not a political message.”

And she contends that the movement's political leaders, including Kennedy, are squandering its potential by confusing proximity to power with influence and abusing supporters' trust.

“Its political leadership is giving supporters a selective account of the administration’s record and pledging support exclusively to Republicans,” she said. “That surrenders the movement’s leverage, giving candidates its allegiance before they have delivered on their promises.”

Michaela Bardossas, a 29-year-old mother and registered independent from Asheville, North Carolina, said MAHA voters have not abandoned the movement.

“But they want to see the promises that brought them to the polls become policy,” she said.

Bardossas voted for Trump in 2024. This year, she says no one has earned her vote.

Bardossas said there is appreciation for the progress Kennedy has made in vaccine and food policy, but there’s also “frustration that some of the issues most important to American families have not received the attention or urgency they deserve, such as pesticides and the removal of the mRNA vaccines.”

Democrats see an opening, but MAHA is skeptical

Meanwhile, Democrats such as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed are courting MAHA voters.

El-Sayed, who has a medical degree and doctorate in public health, announced a policy agenda he called Building a Healthier America.

"In the Senate, I will fight to get toxins out of our food, prioritize local farmers over corporate monopolies, and guarantee clean water for all," he said in a statement.

Ocasio-Cortez, who is leading polls as a possible 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, met with Zen Honeycutt, founder of Moms Across America, to talk about MAHA.

But most MAHA leaders are skeptical.

Honeycutt told USA TODAY that MAHA voters would need to see specific plans, including working with Kennedy, for candidates like Ocasio-Cortez to make inroads.

Emily Lydon of Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a Democratic-aligned group, said many of the issues MAHA voters are excited about, such as healthier food and clean air and water, have broad appeal across party lines.

"This is an issue where we see Republican voters crying out for more regulation,” she said. “The frustrating part is a lot of these are actually longstanding Democratic priorities, but it has not had the sort of institutional backing and voice, and so it was an area where RFK Jr. was really able to co-opt a lot of Democratic policies and get credit for stuff."

Part of what the group is trying to do is make sure that the Democratic Party is leaning in on these issues.

Honeycutt said she wasn't convinced.

“The betrayal by the Democratic party, which forced vaccine mandates and did nothing about glyphosate and pesticides in food when they had the majority, will not be easily repaired and accepted by MAHA,” she said.

For Cianci, the Trump administration's of urging the Supreme Court to side with Bayer in the Roundup case over glyphosate doomed the MAHA-Trump coalition.

“If ever, in my opinion, there were a death knell to the MAHA coalition with Trump, that was it,” she said.

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal.