November is looming and Republicans are eager to turn out every voter that propelled them to victory in 2024. A critical part of their winning coalition was the “MAHA Moms,” a group that doesnt neatly fit into either party but cares deeply about food safety, public health, and a clean environment.
President Trump won this group in 2024 largely by joining forces with RFK Jr., who is, according to some polls, currently the most popular member of the Trump administration. But theres no guarantee these voters will stick with the GOP. If Republicans want to drive MAHA mom turnout, they need to champion a winning environmental-health agenda.
Ultimately, MAHA moms dont just want to be able to afford food for their families. They want to afford good food. Because raising healthy kids shouldnt require being rich.
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Moms across the socioeconomic spectrum have started reading ingredient labels, worrying about pesticides, cutting out food dyes, and filtering water. RFK Jr. isnt popular because he gets everything right, but because he was the first political leader in a long time to confront the chronic disease epidemic and question why half of the ingredients on the average loaf of bread were only intelligible to a small subset of food scientists.
RFK Jr. has had initial successes.The administration has proposed closing the decades-old loophole that allowed food companies to introduce new chemicals without telling the FDA.
HHS and USDA also submitted the government’s first proposed definition of ultra-processed foods, which make up nearly 60 percent of the American diet.
And most recently, the EPA announced a cutting-edge study screening drinking water for over 1,400 emerging contaminants, including PFAS, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and the abortion-inducing mifepristone. For MAHA moms, these are tangible signs that someone in Washington is finally listening.
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But, progress on one front has come with frustration on another. The same administration that is scrutinizing food additives has moved to protect glyphosate, the herbicide found in Roundup and the most widely used weed killer in American agriculture that some fear is carcinogenic. When the Supreme Court heard arguments in a major Roundup liability case this spring, the Trump administration filed a brief on behalf of the pesticide’s manufacturer. RFK Jr. largely sidestepped questions about the administration’s pesticide stance when pressed by Congress.
Meanwhile, under Administrator Zeldin’s deregulatory agenda, the EPA has moved to roll back drinking water standards for PFAS and weakened protections against mercury and other air pollutants.
MAHA moms are not naive about this tension. They are thankful their concerns are finally part of the national conversation. Likewise, they are wary of the lefts heavy-handed government policies that have failed to improve public health while making life unaffordable. But, they havent yet been convinced that the GOP actually wants to respond to their concerns rather th
