RFK Jr.'s MAHA movement is coming to a state near you

Texas is looking at bills to bring back exercise. West Virginia is taking soda out of food stamp programs and outlawing chemical dyes. Utah is removing fluoride from water. Arizona has banned ultra-processed food in public school cafeterias.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again movement, which focuses on ending what President Donald Trump's health secretary calls the “chronic disease epidemic,” is finding success in state capitals as lawmakers and governors take up or oppose health-related measures ranging from vaccine "advisories" to food safety. 

But Kennedy's supporters aren't following a simple partisan formula. They are opposing a Republican-backed bill in Tennessee that would limit the liability of pesticide companies, for example, while backing California Democrats on measures involving improved food quality for incarcerated people and limiting use of glyphosate, a herbicide linked to cancer.

At the federal level, Kennedy in his opening months on the job announced a plan to phase out artificial dyes from the U.S. food supply and directed his department to conduct studies aimed at identifying "environmental toxins" behind the rising rates of autism. His critics have hammered him over his views on vaccines and for making major staffing cuts to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Outside of Washington, D.C., Kennedy's followers appear to be scrambling the country's stubborn red-blue divide.

Shifting from kind of 'woo-woo' to 'kind of trendy'

“It’s considered less 'woo-woo' now,” said Emily Stembridge, a 39-year-old mother of three from Lehi, Utah, who recruited like-minded moms to lobby her Republican-dominated state to ban artificial food dyes from school lunches. “Now it's kind of trendy, and so, it was the time to strike.

Stembridge, a Republican who grew up in a health-conscious family, says she was intrigued by Kennedy’s 2024 presidential run, which ended last August when he dropped out and endorsed Trump before landing a job in the new president's Cabinet. The way Kennedy talked about health during that White House campaign, with an emphasis on “moms and families,” spoke to her.

 is looking at bills to bring back exercise. West Virginia is taking soda out of food stamp programs and outlawing chemical dyes. Utah is removing fluoride from water. Arizona has banned ultra-processed food in public school cafeterias.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again movement, which focuses on ending what President Donald Trump's health secretary calls the “chronic disease epidemic,” is finding success in state capitals as lawmakers and governors take up or oppose health-related measures ranging from vaccine "advisories" to food safety

At the federal level, Kennedy in his opening months on the job announced a plan to phase out artificial dyes from the U.S. food supply and directed his department to conduct studies aimed at identifying "environmental toxins" behind the rising rates of autism. His critics have hammered him over his views on vaccines and for making major staffing cuts to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Outside of Washington, D.C., Kennedy's follsafety.appear to be scrambling the country's stubborn red-blue divide.

Shifting from kind of 'woo-woo' to 'kind of trendy'

“It’s considered less 'woo-woo' now,” said Emily Stembridge, a 39-year-old mother of three from Lehi, Utah, who recruited like-minded moms to lobby her Republican-dominated state to ban artificial food dyes from school lunches. “Now it's kind of trendy, and so, it was the time to strike, 

a Republican who grew up in a health-conscious family, says she was intrigued by Kennedy’s 2024 presidential run, which ended last August when he dropped out and endorsed Trump before landing a job in the new president's Cabinet. The way Kennedy talked about health during that White House campaign, with an emphasis on “moms and families,” spoke to her.

“I’d never seen anyone in his position putting these issues in the forefront,” she said. “These are things a lot of us were recognizing in our day-to-day that no one else seemed to want to pay attention to.”

Stembridge, who calls herself a MAHA Mom, contacted Utah state Rep. Kristen Chevrier and urged the Republican to introduce a bill banning artificial dyes in public schools. The freshman lawmaker did not need much convincing. As a mother of three children with autoimmune issues, Chevrier said she is forced to shop at specialty stores or make everything from scratch.

“The whole mindset of our nation has shifted,” Chevrier said of her legislation, which Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed into law in March.

Kennedy's momentum at the state level has not surprised Del Bigtree, CEO of the MAHA Alliance Super PAC and of MAHA Action, a nonprofit which tracks legislation throughout the country.

“What you're seeing is what government does when the people are watching,” he said. “And now you are gonna see dynamic change, state by state, I believe, because Robert Kennedy Jr. is championing these issues.”

The other reason politicians are paying attention, Bigtree says, is they see MAHA Moms as a “powerful voting block.”“Moms are the most vocal voting block,” he said.

Kennedy this spring toured states that had passed MAHA-aligned bills and executive orders including West Virginia, Utah and Arizona. He visited Indianapolis for the launch of Gov. Mike Braun’s “Make Indiana Healthy Again Initiative," where the Republican signed nine executive orders that called for the examination of the health impacts of artificial dyes and additives and increasing residents’ access to local foods.

At the Indiana meeting, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity TV doctor whom Trump appointed to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was also present with Kennedy to put a MAHA stamp of approval on the governor's efforts.

During last year's presidential campaign Trump described Kennedy as a longtime friend and called his endorsement a great honor.

“I'm going to let him go wild on health. I'm going to let him go wild on the food. I'm going to let him go wild on medicines,” Trump said, at a rally at New York's Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27, less than 10 days before he won the presidential election.