MAHA is key to GOP success in the midterms

By Brett Buchanan

This commentary was reprinted from a LinkedIn article by permission of the author.

Republicans trail Democrats by three points on the generic congressional ballot. Put a MAHA-supporting Republican against a MAHA-opposing Democrat, and that number flips to R+7. A 10-point swing hiding in plain sight, and most Republican candidates are too cautious to grab it.

Cygnal polling tells a story the political class doesn't appear willing to hear. The principles behind @maha Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) carry 77% support among midterm voters against just 12% opposition. That net support has climbed seven points since October alone. The momentum is accelerating, not stalling.

And the coalition behind it demolishes every assumption about partisan divides. Democrats register 65% support. Independents hit 78%. When we asked voters what approaches would most encourage Americans to be healthier, half said "phase out high-risk additives in food and medicine," driven heavily by Republicans and Independents. Sixty percent are willing to accept price increases if it means healthier standards. Voters have made their decision. The question is whether Republican leaders will catch up.

Trump-RFK partnership as blueprint

I credit Charlie Kirk for brokering one of the shrewdest political partnerships in recent memory. The Trump-Kennedy alliance unlocked a voter coalition that neither man could have assembled alone, and it played a significant role in Trump's 2024 victory.

Trump kept his word. He put Kennedy in charge of HHS, where the MAHA team has made sweeping changes that have Big Food, Big Ag and the pharmaceutical industry scrambling. That matters beyond policy. Keeping promises builds political capital. Voters watched a candidate say he'd do something, win, and then actually do it. In an era of institutional distrust, follow-through is the rarest form of political currency.

The partnership also proved something the consultant class still refuses to accept: healthy living is a cross-partisan issue. It belongs to no single ideology. It belongs to anyone who's tired of being told the food supply is fine while chronic disease rates climb.

What voters are actually saying

Look at who swings toward Republicans when MAHA is on the ballot. Independents move 15 points. Young men, 15 points. College-educated men, 11. Households earning under $75,000 a year shift 14 points. Black voters move 8, Hispanic voters 14.

That coalition looks eerily familiar. It mirrors the one that put Trump in the White House and has since drifted away from Republicans in polling. MAHA is the issue that brings them back. Not tax policy. Not deregulation talking points. A concrete promise to stop poisoning their families.

Fifty percent of voters want high-risk additives phased out. Sixty percent will pay more for healthier standards. These aren't soft preferences. Voters are signaling a fundamental shift in what they expect from government, and the energy behind it runs deeper than any single election cycle. The anti-establishment instinct that drove populist politics for a decade has found a tangible, kitchen-table expression: what's in our food, and why won't anyone fix it?

Renting voters vs. owning them

MAHA leader Tony Lyons nailed it in a memo this week: "The Republican Party is renting MAHA voters" and "hasn't decided to purchase them yet." GOP leaders are happy to borrow the energy without yet fully committing to the agenda.

That's a losing strategy. Tepid support produces tepid results. Democrats understand this instinctively with their own coalition issues. They don't hedge on climate or student debt; they run on them, own the voters who care about them, and build durable loyalty. Republicans keep treating MAHA like a garnish when the data says it should be the main course.

The risk is real. MAHA voters didn't come to the GOP out of lifelong loyalty. They came because someone finally spoke to their concerns. If Republicans take that support for granted or water down the agenda to appease industry donors, those voters will find somewhere else to go, which includes staying home. Populist alternatives always emerge when major parties leave a vacuum.

Path forward for the midterms

The choice facing Republican candidates is stark. Run on MAHA and watch the generic ballot swing in your favor. Or treat it as a secondary issue and wonder why the coalition that delivered 2024 doesn't show up in 2026.

Running with MAHA means mentioning it regularly in your stump speech. Running on MAHA means making food safety, pharmaceutical transparency and health freedom central to your campaign identity. The difference between those two approaches is the difference between renting and owning.

Every data point says the same thing. The voters are there. The coalition is real. The support is bipartisan and growing. What's missing is the courage to build a midterm strategy around it. Republicans have a weapon that reshapes the electorate in their favor, and the clock is ticking on whether they'll use it or let it rust.

Brent Buchanan is CEO of Cygnal, the leading center-right polling firm, and author of "America's Emotional Divide: Navigating the Powerful Decision-Making Forces Impacting Politics, Policies & Personal Choices."

_{*The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of HealthPlatform.News.}