MAHA Leader Tony Lyons Says Movement Will Work With Democrats After GOP Midterm Losses

Tony Lyons, who runs several MAHA political committees and is a key ally of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said Wednesday, Nov. 4, that the movement will work with Democrats. The pivot came one day after Republicans lost power in the midterm elections.

"We partner with absolutely everyone who's willing to partner with us," Lyons told supporters on a virtual call. That includes "politicians who will work with us from any party."

"There are good people across the political spectrum who want to be part of this, and we're going to find every last one of them and fight with them," he said.

That is a reversal. Lyons's PACs endorsed and supported only Republicans heading into the election, and he had urged supporters to do the same to protect Kennedy's alliance with President Trump.

The losses behind the shift

MAHA-aligned Republicans lost in Iowa, Texas and Kansas on Tuesday. The most painful was Iowa, where GOP gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn lost in a landslide to Democrat Rob Sand.

Kennedy and allied groups put real time and money behind Lahn. He had promised to ban COVID-19 vaccines, end school vaccine mandates, clean up Iowa's water and regulate chemicals.

Trump told The New York Times late Tuesday that he is willing to work with Democrats and doesn't want to spend the next two years vetoing every measure. He has blamed the losses on not being on the ballot. A White House official said in an email that turnout and candidate quality explain the results.

MAHA's complaint about Republicans

The movement's frustration with the GOP predates Tuesday. MAHA supporters, a loose collection of groups with no fixed party home, have said repeatedly that they feel betrayed by Republicans and the Trump administration.

The friction is structural. MAHA priorities on clean food and water, pesticides and food dyes cut against the GOP's historically pro-business agenda. Republican lawmakers have opposed efforts to regulate ultra-processed food and ban pesticides and dyes, siding with corporate lobbying of the White House to scale those efforts back.

Zen Honeycutt, founder of Moms Across America and a prominent Kennedy supporter, endorsed Democrats days before the election. Her list included Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Cory Booker and Rep. Chris Pappas, who ran for Senate in New Hampshire. "The Republicans were supportive of this MAHA movement, but most of the Republicans in office did not follow through with the promises that we were given," she told Politico.

Calley Means, a top Kennedy adviser and chief MAHA advocate, has also resigned from the administration. He gave no reason. His departure came as MAHA voices complained about a lack of progress on food security and on regulating the weed killer glyphosate. Means said the movement "is in the first inning and just getting started."

Democrats courting the same voters

Some Democrats ran on a "Building a Healthier America" agenda that targeted pesticide company accountability, toxic chemicals in food and water, and "Big Ag" monopolies. Ocasio-Cortez and Michigan Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed were among them.

Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, said she is "thrilled that there are Republicans who are activists on these issues related to ultra-processed food and chemical toxins in our food." She said she spoke on a panel with Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie about the overlap between organic-minded liberals and libertarian MAHA types.

Not everyone sees a clean fit. Derek Beres, a host of the Conspirituality podcast, which tracks conspiracy theory and pseudoscience, argues that Kennedy's 2024 run courted fringe communities, including anti-vaccine circles. At a Children's Health Defense event in September, Kennedy pledged to investigate "chemtrails."

Democrats have also run against Kennedy. A measles outbreak in Pennsylvania, plus large outbreaks in Wisconsin, Utah and South Carolina, became a campaign issue. The political group 314 Action ran a six-figure ad campaign in at least five states tying Republicans to Kennedy. "Voters are really turned off by RFK Jr.'s unscientific approach to public health," said its founder, Shaughnessy Naughton.

Polling points the same way. A May KFF survey found 41% of registered voters trusted Democrats on vaccine policy versus 25% for Republicans, and 60% disapproved of Kennedy's performance.

What Democrats can and cannot do

Democratic power is limited. Democrats can investigate health policy, influence agency funding and introduce legislation. They cannot reverse Trump's executive orders on their own or remove Kennedy as HHS secretary, and any bill they pass faces a presidential veto.

Lyons has been openly hostile to the Democrats now being courted. In September he said of Ocasio-Cortez, "She is not our ally. She is just another double-talking politician."

Whether his committees will actually fund and endorse Democrats, and whether Democrats who campaigned against Kennedy's vaccine record will accept his movement's help, is not yet known. Lyons has not named any Democrat he plans to work with.