President Donald Trump’s first term sent a wave of national security professionals into politics. His second term is doing the same for public health experts.

Across the country, doctors, scientists and public health officials are running for state and federal office, citing their frustrations with cuts to public health funding, diminished support for vaccination and disease prevention, and the sidelining of experts in public health.

Among the most prominent is Dr. Nirav Shah, who was head of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention during the coronavirus pandemic. He is considered the front-runner in a competitive Democratic primary for Maine governor on Tuesday.

Other candidates include Dr. Amy Acton, a pediatric physician and researcher who is the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Ohio, and Jasmine Clark, who is poised to become the first Black woman Ph.D. scientist in Congress after securing the Democratic nomination for Georgia’s 13th District. In Michigan, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a former public health official, is currently ahead in the polls for the Democratic Senate primary in August.

They are part of a broader wave of scientists getting involved in politics. The 314 Action Fund, a political action committee dedicated to recruiting and electing Democratic STEM professionals, has committed more money than ever before to the 2026 primary cycle. 

Doctors are nothing new in politics, of course. There are already 20 physicians serving in Congress, including four senators. 

But the current group of elected officials is disproportionately Republican, while the new wave of candidates is centered in Democratic primaries. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s deep cuts to staff at federal health agencies and controversial changes to vaccine policy seem to have inspired a number of the candidates. 

But on the campaign trail, they are much more likely to talk about Trump allowing expanded subsidies for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act to expire than on public health policy.

Dr. Richard Pan, a pediatrician running for Congress in California, gave a typical statement in a social media post last week. 

“People in the district are struggling as the cost of gas, food, and housing spike and health care is being taken away by the Trump Administration,” he wrote.

Just 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they support the Make America Healthy Again movement championed by Kennedy, according to polling last month from health policy organization KFF.

But when asked to choose the most important health priority for the federal government, 42% of MAHA backers chose lowering healthcare costs, twice as many as the next agenda item, restricting chemical additives to food.

Once in office, medical professionals will sometimes cite their expertise when trying to win a political argument, but there are limits. 

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a gastroenterologist, led the effort against Kennedy’s nomination in 2025 before reluctantly voting for him. Last month he lost a Republican primary for re-election after Trump endorsed his opponent. 

A focus on costs also helps candidates stay focused on the economy. Only 2% of voters say healthcare is the most important issue in the election, according to a May poll by Gallup, well below the economy and immigration. 

Like any other group of political newcomers, healthcare professionals have also faced setbacks. In Texas, emergency room physician Dr. Ada Cuellar lost a Democratic congressional primary to a Tejano music star. 

But these kinds of waves can have a long-term impact. Among the class of national security pros who won in 2018 were future senators Elissa Slotkin and Andy Kim and future governors Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill. 

This is a preview of MS NOW’s Project 47 Newsletter. As President Trump continues implementing his ambitious agenda, get expert analysis on the administration’s latest actions and how others are pushing back sent straight to your inbox every Tuesday. Sign up now.

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UPDATE (June 8, 2026, 9:25 p.m. ET): Los Angeles Council member Nithya Raman will advance to the November general election in the mayoral race to face the incumbent, Karen Bass, after overtaking ex-reality TV star Spencer Pratt in the primary, The Associated Press projects.

President Donald Trump and some of his top allies are repeating a familiar but false refrain: An election is “rigged,” as evidenced by their preferred candidate’s poor performance.

This time, their focus is on ex-reality TV star and Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt.

On the night of the Tuesday primary, Pratt maintained a 9-point lead over his closest challenger, LA Council member Nithya Raman, leading his supporters to believe he would proceed to the November runoff against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass. But as mail-in ballots trickled in throughout the week, Pratt’s lead over Raman steadily narrowed, and by Sunday night, she had overtaken him by less than 1 point, with more than 80% of votes counted, according to The Associated Press. (The AP has not yet projected the second-place finisher to proceed to the runoff as of Monday afternoon.)

To Trump and his MAGA allies, a democratic socialist’s surge over a registered Republican with no political experience in a deep-blue city can only be indicative of one thing: fraud.

“No way this could have happened. Rigged Election!” Trump wrote on Truth Social early Monday morning.

A few hours later, Trump followed up with another Truth Social post.

“Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. 3rd World Nation. Rigged Elections!” he wrote.

Far-right activist Laura Loomer, a close ally of the president, told her 1.9 million followers on X on Saturday that the election “is being stolen from [Pratt] in real time!”

Benny Johnson and Elon Musk have also reposted several right-wing accounts suggesting Raman’s rise must be the result of fraud. Meghan McCain, who is a conservative commentator but also a frequent Trump critic, also injected doubt into the election results.

But election experts are not surprised by Raman’s slow rise as vote counting continues.

Why California vote counting takes so long

A poll released by the University of California, Berkeley, and the Los Angeles Times in late May suggested Pratt and Raman would be competing neck-and-neck to proceed to the runoff, and several strategists long predicted Pratt — a registered Republican backed by MAGA — would face an uphill battle in the blue city.

The mechanics of how Angelenos’ votes are counted also explain Raman’s rise: California elections officials have 30 days from Election Day to come up with the vote count, and mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day and received up to seven days after the election are eligible to be counted. (If mail-in ballots are missing signatures or have signatures that do not match those on file, state law requires election officials to contact voters to verify their signatures, adding more time to the process.)

Results posted on election night are based on in-person ballots cast at voting locations, both on Election Day and before, as well as mail-in ballots received before Election Day, according to the California secretary of state’s office. Subsequent counts include votes cast by provisional ballots, ballots from voters who registered and voted on the same day and the mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day and received within seven days of the election.

“This is not unusual,” Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, told MS NOW on Monday regarding the shifting results in the race.

Yaroslavsky pointed to the 2022 LA primary, when Republican turned centrist Democrat Rick Caruso was ahead of Bass on primary night before she pulled ahead a week later. In the November runoff, Bass ultimately beat Caruso by nearly 10 points. Nearly 85% of voters also voted by mail in that primary, contributing to the delay in Bass’s rise.

“It’s clear, it has always been the case, that Republicans and more conservative voters vote early, [and] working people, more progressive people vote late,” Yaroslavsky said.

And with more votes still to be counted, Yaroslavsky predicted Raman’s lead over Pratt would expand even further.

‘No evidence’ of cheating

Dean Logan, LA County’s registrar-recorder and county clerk, told CNN on Sunday that officials have “no evidence or examples” of cheating in the mayoral race.

“I think what we’re seeing, unfortunately, is carrying out of a narrative that has become the game play in national politics in the United States, and that is prior to the vote count being completed, take shots at the process, so if the outcome turns out different than what you want, you don’t accept that, you challenge the process,” Logan said.

Yaroslavsky agreed, telling MS NOW, “What the president is basically saying is, ‘When I win, it’s legit, when I don’t win, it’s fraud.’ That’s not the way it works.”

Logan told CNN the outcome would be clear within “days,” adding, “I know it’s frustrating, but this is really about making sure that every eligible ballot in this election is counted and counted correctly.”

In the meantime, other conspiracies are circulating, including some promoted by Pratt himself.

Pratt suggested on Sunday night, for example, that the approximately 43,000 votes Raman gained between Tuesday and Sunday came from homeless people. In another social media post on Sunday, Pratt wrote: “They’re not the only ones who know where to find votes.”

Spokespeople for the Pratt campaign did not immediately respond to questions from MS NOW on Monday seeking clarification about the candidate’s claims.

Other conservative influencers have also falsely said Raman “conceded” the race at her primary night rally. But as MS NOW covered in real time, Raman did not concede the race. Instead, she warned her supporters that it would take time for the votes to be counted and that they may not get a favorable outcome.

“Tonight may not give us a final answer on this race. Many thousands of votes will be counted in the days ahead, and we may not get an answer we like,” she said.

In a statement provided to MS NOW on Monday, Raman said, “We are encouraged by the latest vote count and remain grateful to the thousands of Angelenos who have powered this campaign.”

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