The Democrats are coming for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The party’s midterm election triumph gives them control of both houses of Congress, which means they’ll be in charge of key committees come January—and insiders are already talking about subpoenas, hearings, and even impeachment for the vaccine-skeptic health secretary.
“We’re going to see RFK Jr.’s head on a platter,” Erik Polyak, executive director of the Democratic PAC 314 Action, told Politico.
Kennedy will face the onslaught without a key ally on Capitol Hill, Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas. Marshall started the MAHA Caucus in December 2024, before the Senate had even confirmed Kennedy as health secretary.
On Tuesday, Marshall became the first Republican to lose a Kansas Senate race in nearly a hundred years, with Democrat Adam Hamilton smashing him by 5 points.
Polyak said going after Kennedy was the group’s best tool for raising money and getting donors fired up, calling it their “biggest motivator and fundraising tool. ”
“Every conflict of interest is going to be investigated by Democrats,” he said.
With most of MAHA’s handpicked candidates wiped out on Tuesday, Kennedy will cut a lonely figure on the Hill.
Out of the 21 MAHA-endorsed candidates for federal office, 12 lost, seven won, and two races remain uncalled, with all of the winners sitting on safe seats.
At the state level, 42 of the 76 MAHA picks were slashed.
In Texas, state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was embraced by MAHA fans for launching probes into food, chemical, and drug companies, lost his Senate bid to Democrat James Talarico, despite Republican groups and Elon Musk pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the most expensive non-presidential race in U.S. history.
Iowa was a graveyard. Kennedy’s allies bet bigger on Zach Lahn’s run for Iowa governor than on any other race, and he still lost.
Two other Republicans Kennedy campaigned to help, Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn, were also ousted. Ashley Hinson, another MAHA-aligned candidate, lost her race for the Senate seat that retiring Sen. Joni Ernst is leaving behind.
Kennedy backed Joe Mitchell, who was up for Hinson’s old House seat but was also crushed.
Andrews backs impeaching Kennedy, calling him her “professional archnemesis for decades.”
But back in MAHA basecamp, more fingers are pointed at Trump, 80, than Kennedy.
In February, MAHA loyalists were furious with the president when he signed an executive order boosting production of glyphosate, the Roundup weedkiller they believe causes cancer.
They were also fuming about health appointees like CDC Director Erica Schwartz, who doesn’t share Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism.
“The honeymoon period came to an end some time ago,” Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, a MAHA ally, told supporters during a Wednesday call.
The money behind the movement is also starting to dry up.
In March, Tony Lyons, who runs MAHA’s network of nonprofits and PACs, promised to raise $100 million for MAHA-friendly Republicans.
But federal filings show the wind went out of MAHA’s cash sails, with only about $1 million spent on federal races and, by the end of October, only about $209,000 going to competitive contests.
MAHA showed up in just 0.2 percent of GOP congressional ads, according to a Wesleyan University analysis.
Lyons says MAHA is happy to work with Democrats sympathetic to the MAHA agenda, but there is a catch: hands off Kennedy.
Some Democrats are making a strategic play for Kennedy’s loyalists.
For instance, Abdul El-Sayed.
El-Sayed, 42, won a historic Senate race in Michigan over GOP Rep. Mike Rogers. In a side swipe at MAHA, he rolled out a “Building a Healthier America” agenda aimed squarely at MAHA’s worries about food safety and chemicals in the environment.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has led a House working group urging the party to woo MAHA voters.
Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, argued that MAHA’s newfound anger with the GOP presented an “opportunity for Democrats.”
Speculation has circulated that Kennedy might just throw in the towel and call it quits himself.
But Kennedy ally Robert Malone, a scientist who backs Kennedy in his opposition to the COVID-19 vaccine, rejects the idea that the health secretary could decide to stand down.
“He is not a quitter and will stick it out,” he said.
Kennedy “will continue delivering President Trump’s Make America Healthy Again agenda,” Emily Hilliard, senior press secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, told Politico.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
