MAHA just beat a MAGA-backed candidate. What that means for Trump

President Donald Trump’s midterm winning streak came to a halt late Tuesday night after his preferred candidate failed to get enough votes. The identity of the man who defeated Trump’s candidate is even more remarkable than the defeat itself, since they emerged from Make America Healthy Again — a movement Trump himself helped create. 

Big names in the MAHA movement, like MAHA PAC co-president Tony Lyons, celebrated after Zach Lahn defeated the Trump-backed Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa, for Iowa’s Republican gubernatorial primary. While Lyons thanked Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who leads the MAHA movement, he also thanked Trump for his support. 

“MAHA pac congratulates Zach Lahn, the likely future MAHA governor of Iowa,” Lyons wrote. “Thanks to the courage and leadership of President Trump and Secretary Kennedy, the MAHA movement is alive and strong.”

Lahn is a businessman and farmer, even launching his campaign from his family farm in Belle Plaine, Iowa. He gained visibility in the crowded primary in December after he appeared on a popular weekly teleconference hosted by MAHA Action, the movement’s largest political arm, CNN reports. Lahn’s own website prominently notes that he was the first candidate in history to receive a MAHA Action endorsement. 

But that wasn’t Lahn’s only first, since he is the first candidate to beat a Trump-endorsed candidate during this primary season. The election shock raises the question of whether MAGA and MAHA might not be as interlinked as most people assume.

Who is MAHA?

In the summer of 2024, just hours after a man allegedly tried to assassinate Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump called RFK Jr. to offer him a cabinet-level position if he dropped out of the race and endorsed him. In leaked audio from the call, Trump told Kennedy that he “would love for you to serve. I think it would be so good for you and so big for you,” according to Rolling Stone. 

Kennedy later dropped his third-party run and endorsed Trump a month later. MAHA, which Kennedy coined during his failed run, brought new voters into the Republican Party. Kennedy’s movement traditionally didn’t align with either party, but many of its top voices were among the far left, according to Vox. But the COVID-19 pandemic changed that, and many MAHA supporters oriented with the right. 

Since RFK’s appointment as HHS secretary, MAHA has permeated the MAGA movement and America in general. A recent KFF-Washington Post survey found that about 40% of American parents identify as MAHA supporters. More than 60% of Republican parents supported MAHA, and about 81% of self-identified MAGA Republicans identified with the movement, according to the survey. 

But that doesn’t mean they are ardent Trump supporters. Jeff Hutt, a spokesperson for the MAHA PAC, said earlier this year that Republicans need to give MAHA supporters a reason to come out and vote.

“The Republican Party is going to have to really give those people, or express a reason to those people, why they should come out and vote, and I think that’s going to be their big challenge,” Hutt told The Hill in January.

Where did the alliance crack?

Cracks began forming in the two groups’ union months before the election. In February, Trump signed an executive order describing the pesticide glyphosate as “a cornerstone of this Nation’s agricultural productivity and rural economy.” He also invoked the Defense Production Act to ensure the U.S. had a domestic supply, elevating its production to a national security priority. 

Kennedy has been one of the leading critics of the chemical, which he called “one of the likely culprits in America’s chronic disease epidemic” while running for president in 2024. Many in the MAHA movement believe the chemical is linked to increases in cancer, endocrine disruption and can damage a person’s gut microbiome.

Kennedy later backed Trump’s weedkiller order, leading to criticisms from his own base. 

MAHA supporters later criticized House Republicans after the farm bill included language shielding pesticide manufacturers from lawsuits as long as their labeling met Environmental Protection Agency standards. It also prevented states from imposing stricter requirements.

After the amendment passed, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a MAHA-aligned Republican from Florida, said Republicans who supported it were already feeling the pressure from MAHA supporters. 

“A number of Republicans are already regretting their vote against the amendment and are feeling the pressure from MAHA moms back home for their reelections,” she said. 

What happened in Iowa?

Feenstra, whom Trump backed, ran as the establishment candidate, portraying himself as a loyal ally to the president. But Lahn ran an entirely different kind of campaign. 

While he ran on traditional conservative themes, like a total abortion ban and a pledge to ban H-1B visa holders from state jobs, he also aggressively critiqued corporate agriculture, pesticide use, and pharmaceutical influence. He also spent a substantial amount of time discussing environmental health concerns, particularly Iowa’s drinking water quality and rising cancer rates, according to Time.

“I will take on the big ag cartels,” Lahn said in his victory speech. “I will break up their monopolies, and I will get Iowa farmers a fair deal.”

Lahn’s campaign attracted big endorsements in addition to the MAHA movement. Large conservative groups, like Turning Point USA, endorsed his campaign. Even Feenstra’s opponent in the 2020 Republican primary, former Rep. Steve King, added his name to Lahn’s endorsement list, NBC News reported. 

What does this mean for Trump?

Political analysts are still reassessing what voters said during the latest primary election. Brittany Martinez, a Republican strategist, told Newsweek that Lahn’s victory doesn’t immediately mean a split between MAHA and Trump. She suggests it serves as proof that Trump’s endorsement may not be the invincible asset it is often perceived to be.

“The bigger question is whether Republican primary voters are prioritizing different issues and messengers within the broader movement,” Martinez told Newsweek. “Trump remains the dominant figure in the party, but not every race is going to be decided by his endorsement alone.”

While Lahn’s victory might not mean Trump has trouble with his base, it does show that Democrats have an easier path to victory in the general election. Even before Feenstra’s loss, the Cook Political Report shifted the state’s gubernatorial race from “Lean Republican” to “Toss-Up” back in April. 

In his victory speech, Lahn told supporters that “the establishment” had outspent him, but Iowa’s voters had something to say about that: “Iowa doesn’t belong to the political class.” That line will ring well beyond Iowa, and MAHA now has a winning template if they want to try to replicate Tuesday night’s results. But it remains to be seen whether that was a warning shot or the opening move to a longer political realignment.

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