Democratic doctors storm the midterms as voters reject MAHA

The votes are still being counted in hundreds of down-ballot races, but the headline is already locked in: Democratic doctors and scientists won big in the 2026 midterms. The political group that worked to elect them, 3.14 Action, is calling the result the "Stem swing" and, with a grin, the "revenge of the nerds." Two of its stars made history. Dr Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan and Dr Annie Andrews of South Carolina are heading to Washington, and not since 1969, the year Medicare and Medicaid became law, had a Democratic doctor held a Senate seat.

The old scoreboard told a very different story. From 2011 to 2020, 86% of the physician-members of Congress were Republicans, and three-quarters of them came from southern states. This election flipped that script. Republican Dr Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa lost, as did Senate candidate Dr Roger Marshall, both allies of health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. Three more Republican doctors sat in races too close to call. Every incumbent Democratic doctor held their seat.

Voters had plenty to be furious about. Trump and Kennedy have brought upheaval to nearly every corner of American science and medicine, from the EPA to Medicaid, the program that insures 72 million people. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has lost up to a third of its staff in the middle of a record measles outbreak. The National Institutes of Health lost leadership and watched research get stymied. The FDA struggled against a historic cyclosporiasis outbreak. On election day, New York authorities announced a child there had died of measles for the first time in 30 years.

"People across America are frustrated by the high cost of living, exhausted trying to make ends meet, and fed up with a ridiculously expensive and complicated healthcare system," Dr Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said in a statement. "They want leaders who understand how hard it is and will do something to make their lives better."

Democrats spent like it mattered. Healthcare was the second-biggest issue in campaign ads, according to the Cook Political Report, with more than 158,000 Democratic healthcare ads against 61,000 for Republicans. 3.14 Action alone dropped $23m on independent spots. The candidates got specific: Andrews, a pediatrician, handed out measles advice while federal officials downplayed the danger; El-Sayed sold Medicare for All as a lifeline for rural hospitals; Ohio's Dr Amy Acton turned her Covid-era record as a health director into an asset instead of a liability. In Iowa, law professor Christina Bohannan promised more research money as rising cancer rates became a bipartisan flashpoint.

Governing comes with a hangover. The harshest cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act hit on New Year's Day 2027, Medicaid work requirements among them, and 17 million people are expected to lose insurance over the next decade. Insurers and drugmakers will fight the new lawmakers' plans, which stretch from a public option to single-payer. Public health groups are already demanding Kennedy's removal. "In a lot of ways, this election represented the beginning of the end of RFK Jr's disastrous leadership," said Erik Polyak, 3.14 Action's executive director, who says the group flipped at least 10 Republican seats with the final tally landing in the low 30s. "They didn't elect all these Democratic scientists just to oppose Trump. People want to see an alternative agenda."