发布时间：2026年2月3日，美国东部时间上午6:00 | 作者：莎拉·奥默莫尔
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2023年8月10日，纽约，Skyhorse出版社总裁托尼·莱昂斯在其办公室。
Jeenah Moon/The New York Times/Redux/资料图
作为一名第六代农民，扎奇·拉恩（Zach Lahn）正在竞选爱荷华州州长，他是2026年选举周期中首位获得MAHA支持的候选人。
他的竞选纲领包括挑战”大型农业”和”大型制药”，在竞争激烈的候选人中，他的知名度在2023年12月通过MAHA行动组织（MAHA Action）主办的热门每周远程会议得到提升。MAHA行动已成为该运动的主要政治力量。
介绍拉恩时，MAHA行动领袖托尼·莱昂斯宣称：”这场竞选是个全国性问题。这是一场全国性的竞选，对MAHA运动至关重要。在这里获胜将表明我们能够重建那些能让这个国家健康发展的价值观。”
在特朗普总统任期的第一年，”让美国再次健康”（Make America Healthy Again，MAHA）的倡导者发出警告：忽视MAHA要求的政客将自食其果。推动该运动崛起的深口袋金融家们一直在构建政治机器，将MAHA从草根运动转变为华盛顿及全国范围内的既得利益政治力量。
其中最具影响力的是莱昂斯，他长期支持卫生与公众服务部部长小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪（Robert F. Kennedy Jr.），并投入数百万美元打造这一政治运动。起初是支持肯尼迪2024年总统竞选，现在则是MAHA政治影响力的关键架构师之一。
“我们需要战斗，战斗，再战斗，我们需要不断取得进展，”莱昂斯在介绍拉恩时表示。他的公司Skyhorse因出版包括RFK Jr.在内的争议人物作品而闻名。”不要搞错，这将是一场真正的战斗，而且永无止境。”
莱昂斯和MAHA领导人表示，他们有很多值得吹嘘的成就：简化儿童疫苗接种时间表、推出新的饮食指南（颠倒食物金字塔），以及计划从食品中去除人工色素。
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2025年4月29日，亚利桑那州图森市一所小学，一名学生午餐时食用当地橙子。
Caitlin O’Hara/路透社
但外界对该运动是否有足够的势头和凝聚力来影响获得MAHA支持的共和党候选人的选举结果持怀疑态度。
美国企业研究所（American Enterprise Institute）保守派智库卫生政策高级研究员托马斯·米勒（Thomas Miller）表示：”特朗普的选民联盟，包括MAHA支持者，往往包括那些原本不会投票，或者不那么关注政治进程，直到感到足够不满的人。”
“但在2026年的选举中，这一点更难实现，”他说，”因为中期选举的选民投票率较低。”
米勒指出，对于执政党而言，中期选举尤其具有挑战性。”不幸的是，对于共和党候选人来说，他们现在是现任者，而不是以前被妖魔化的对手。”
将MAHA打造成华盛顿的”常客”
过去一年，MAHA运动的政治力量在华盛顿和各州首府稳步建立影响力。
去年11月一个寒冷的早晨，华盛顿特区的特朗普国际酒店（现已更名为镀金的华尔道夫酒店）外排起了长队，人们争相进入由莱昂斯主办的首届”让美国再次健康峰会”。
出席活动的有副总统JD·万斯（JD Vance）、终极格斗冠军赛主席达纳·怀特（Dana White）、正在面临强奸和性侵犯指控的喜剧演员罗素·布兰德（Russell Brand）、痴迷长寿和替代医学的科技百万富翁布莱恩·约翰逊（Bryan Johnson），以及前NASCAR车手丹妮卡·帕特里克（Danica Patrick）。
肯尼迪在此次活动中担任主讲嘉宾，活动中穿插了一系列企业主题小组讨论和流行文化反思，探讨如何”推动美国生物技术加速发展”。
健康食品倡导者、科技企业家和说客们有时要等一个多小时才能入场。
一周前，在德克萨斯州奥斯汀举行的另一场会议吸引了明显不同的MAHA人群。该活动由肯尼迪进入政界前创立的反疫苗非营利组织”儿童健康防御”（Children’s Health Defense）组织，长期肯尼迪助手兼捐赠者马克·戈顿（Mark Gorton）也出席了活动，他是软件公司 LimeWire 的创始人，鼓励人们”更大胆地反对疫苗接种”。
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2026年1月8日，华盛顿特区卫生与公众服务部，在宣布新营养政策前，与会者戴着”让美国再次健康”帽子合影。
Jonathan Ernst/路透社
莱昂斯、戈顿和一群长期支持肯尼迪的人从一开始就与卫生部长站在一起，通过权力、影响力和资金推动原本以草根为基础的MAHA运动。
2024年，当肯尼迪作为黑马候选人参加总统竞选时，戈顿和莱昂斯是早期捐赠者和组织者。戈顿是一名疫苗怀疑论者，也是新冠停摆措施的批评者，他通过与莱昂斯共同创立的政治行动委员会”美国价值观”（American Values）向肯尼迪竞选基金捐赠了100万美元。”美国价值观”最终筹集了超过5000万美元。
在肯尼迪支持特朗普并帮助其连任后，莱昂斯成立了MAHA行动政治行动委员会（PAC），该委员会发起了六位数的广告宣传活动，宣传特朗普和肯尼迪的工作，举办每周支持者虚拟活动，并争取了如华尔道夫酒店活动中出现的那些高调支持者。
在州一级，MAHA行动建立了一个网站，跟踪他们敦促支持者支持的立法（更严格的食品标签、允许生奶销售、医疗保健价格透明度），以及他们应写信反对的立法（加州一项将疫苗推荐权从肯尼迪重塑的联邦咨询小组转移到州卫生部门的法案）。
去年年初，当莱昂斯将”美国价值观”政治行动委员会更名为专注于MAHA时，该游说组织拥有770万美元的竞选资金。根据联邦财务披露，该组织在上半年花费了380万美元，其中大部分用于X公司（X Corp.，埃隆·马斯克旗下Twitter的继任者）、由支持MAHA议程的菲尔博士（Dr. Phil）拥有的Merit Stream Media，以及由肯尼迪长期安全顾问领导的安全公司Gavin de Becker Associates。
该政治行动委员会的全年财务披露预计在2月份公布。
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2026年1月16日，白宫东厅，唐纳德·特朗普总统讲话，卫生与公众服务部部长小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪在一旁倾听。
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
到目前为止，大部分资金都投入到了在线流媒体平台，而且经常是。对于与MAHA结盟的特朗普政府部分，这为接触运动成员创造了平台。卫生官员定期出现在MAHA视频会议中，吹嘘在食品和药品方面的胜利，并提醒选民继续参与。
“我们这个’让美国再次健康’运动，基本上处于能够决定中期选举结果的位置，”肯尼迪任命的疫苗顾问、mRNA技术（最终用于新冠疫苗）的早期先驱罗伯特·马隆（Robert Malone）在11月的MAHA行动会议上说。
“问题是：众议院和参议院的议员们是否会认识到我们运动的重要性、我们的议程、我们的举措，以及关键选民群体对我们的兴趣力量，”他说。
这能转化为选票吗？这重要吗？
随着肯尼迪及其同伙在华盛顿取得胜利，越来越多的人担心，疫苗政策的变化可能会在中期选举前疏远普通美国人。
皮尤研究中心11月的民调显示，大多数选民对儿童疫苗接种时间表有极高信心，而卫生与公众服务部此前已缩小了大多数儿童推荐接种疫苗的范围。
长期共和党策略师、2024年特朗普民调专家托尼·法布里齐奥（Tony Fabrizio）12月的民调显示了类似趋势：超过70%的选民表示，常见疫苗的益处大于风险，包括60%的MAHA选民，根据其民调公司FabrizioWard的数据。
民意调查显示，虽然MAHA的议程——尤其是食品政策——在两党中普遍受欢迎，但疫苗怀疑论并不受欢迎，包括在MAHA选民中。
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2025年12月5日，佐治亚州亚特兰大市疾病控制与预防中心总部，CDC免疫实践咨询委员会会议期间的监视器。该小组投票撤销了所有婴儿在出生24小时内接种乙肝疫苗的长期建议。
Megan Varner/Bloomberg/Getty Images
但目前还不清楚，食品或化学安全等健康问题是否会在今年引起选民的高度关注。
共和党策略师、前共和党全国委员会通讯主任道格·海耶（Doug Heye）表示：”选民发出了明确信号，他们最关心的是经济和物价。其他问题还没有引起关注。”
无论该运动在中期选举中的影响力如何，MAHA的”工业复合体”仍在继续进行产品代言、销售补充剂和出版畅销书。
虽然Skyhorse没有公开其销售和利润数据，但该公司吹嘘自己是美国发展最快的独立出版商之一，拥有100多种畅销书。这些作者也经常出现在每周的MAHA行动流媒体节目中。
肯尼迪的几本书成为Skyhorse的畅销书，他可能从这家出版社获得数百万美元收入。卫生部长去年报告称，他因两本即将出版的书《不稳定的科学》和《为以色列辩护》获得了200万至400万美元的收入，并从Skyhorse获得了45万美元的书籍创意咨询和作者序言撰写费用。
根据其财务披露，肯尼迪与Skyhorse签订了第三本书的合同，但在政府任职期间不会撰写或推广该书。但他的妻子谢丽尔·海因斯（Cheryl Hines）在2025年11月的回忆录获得了60万美元的预付款。
上个月，肯尼迪本人意外出现在MAHA行动会议上，就在一小时前，他还与特朗普在椭圆形办公室一起签署了一项在学校重新引入全脂牛奶的法案。
在肯尼迪就签署法案发表讲话后，莱昂斯对他说：
“有7000名影响力人士在观看这个节目，我想让你知道，他们都爱你，数百万MAHA妈妈们支持你，她们在为你而战。”
“他们认识到你为他们冒险奋斗，”他说。
MAHA’s money man has built a political machine. Will it matter for midterms?
PUBLISHED Feb 3, 2026, 6:00 AM ET | By Sarah Owermohle
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Tony Lyons, president of Skyhorse Publishing, at his office in New York, on August 10, 2023.
Jeenah Moon/The New York Times/Redux/File
A sixth-generation farmer running for Iowa governor, Zach Lahn is the first MAHA-endorsed candidate of the 2026 election cycle.
Running on a platform that includes taking on “Big Agriculture” and “Big Pharma,” his visibility in a crowded field received a boost in publicity when he appeared in December on a popular weekly teleconference hosted by MAHA Action, a lobby group that has become the chief political arm of the movement.
Introducing Lahn, MAHA Action’s leader Tony Lyons declared: “This race is a national problem. It’s a national race, and it’s critical for the MAHA movement. And victory here will demonstrate that we can rebuild, you know, values that will make this country healthy.”
Over the first year of the Trump presidency, “Make America Healthy Again” advocates have issued a warning: Politicians ignore MAHA’s demands at their peril. The deep-pocketed financiers who fueled the movement’s rise have been building the machinery to take MAHA from grassroots outsiders to entrenched power players in Washington and around the country.
The most influential among these is Lyons, a long-time supporter of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who has poured millions into building the political movement, first as a backer of Kennedy’s 2024 presidential run, and now as one of the key architects of MAHA’s political influence.
“We need to fight, fight, fight, and we need to keep making progress,” Lyons, whose company Skyhorse has made a name publishing the works of controversial figures, including RFK Jr., said when he introduced Lahn. “Make no mistake, this is going to be this is a real battle, and it’s endless.”
There is a lot to boast about, Lyons and MAHA leaders say: A whittled-down childhood vaccine schedule, new dietary guidelines with a reversed food pyramid, and plans to remove food artificial dyes from foods.
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A student eats a local orange for lunch at an elementary school in Tucson, Arizona, on April 29, 2025.
Caitlin O’Hara/Reuters
But there is skepticism that the movement has the momentum — and coherence — to make a difference for the Republicans running with the backing of the MAHA label.
The Trump coalition of voters, including MAHA advocates, tends to include “folks who are otherwise not voting, or not as closely attached to the political process, until sufficiently aggrieved,” said Thomas Miller, a senior fellow on health policy at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute.
“That’s harder to do in a 2026 election” because of less voter turnout during midterms, he said.
A midterm election can be a particular problem when you are the party in power, noted Miller. “Unfortunately for the folks who are running on the Republican side, they’re the incumbents now, as opposed to the other folks who were being demonized before.”
Making MAHA a DC staple
The political arm of the MAHA movement has steadily built its influence in Washington and state capitals over the past year.
The scope and depth of its reach could be seen on a cold morning in Washington, DC, last November, when the line to get into what used to be the Trump International Hotel — now the gilded Waldorf Astoria — snaked around the block.
Attending the inaugural “Make America Healthy Again Summit” that day put on by Lyons were Vice President JD Vance; Ultimate Fighting Champion boss Dana White; comedian Russell Brand, who is fighting rape and sexual assault charges; longevity and alternative medicine-obsessed tech multimillionaire Bryan Johnson; and ex-NASCAR driver Danica Patrick.
Kennedy headlined the event, which featured a series of corporate-themed panels interspersed with pop-culture discussions and reflections on how to “Make American Biotechnology Accelerate.”
Health food advocates, tech entrepreneurs and lobbyists waited, at times, for more than an hour to get in.
A week earlier, a separate conference in Austin, Texas, drew a distinctly different MAHA crowd. That gathering, organized by the Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine nonprofit Kennedy founded before he entered politics, featured another longtime Kennedy associate and donor Mark Gorton, founder of the software firm LimeWire who encouraged people “to be more boldly anti-vax.”
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Attendees wear Make America Healthy Again hats while posing for photos, ahead of an announcement on new nutrition policies, at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC, on January 8, 2026.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Lyons, Gorton and a cadre of long-time Kennedy backers have been with the health secretary since the beginning, helping to propel the otherwise grassroots-based MAHA movement with their power, influence and funds.
When Kennedy entered the presidential race as a dark horse candidate in 2024, Gorton and Lyons were early donors and organizers. Gorton, a vaccine skeptic and critic of Covid-19 shutdown measures, gave $1 million to the Kennedy war chest through American Values, a political action committee he co-founded with Lyons. American Values ultimately raised more than $50 million.
After Kennedy endorsed Trump and the Republican secured a second term, Lyons founded the MAHA Action PAC, which has launched six-figure ad campaigns touting Trump and Kennedy’s work, holds weekly virtual events for supporters, and curries high-profile endorsers such as those who graced the Waldorf Astoria event.
On the state level, MAHA Action has built a website tracking legislation they urge followers to support (tougher food labels, allowing raw milk sales, health care price transparency) and those they should write lawmakers to oppose (a California bill that would shift authority over vaccine recommendations from Kennedy’s reshaped federal advisory group to the state health department).
At the start of last year, when Lyons renamed American Values PAC to become MAHA-focused, the lobby had war chest of $7.7 million. It spent $3.8 million of those funds in the first half of the year, according to federal financial disclosures, much of which went to X Corp., the Elon Musk-owned successor to Twitter; Merit Stream Media, a platform owned by Dr. Phil, who has supported MAHA agenda points; and Gavin de Becker Associates, a security firm led by Kennedy’s longtime security adviser.
The PAC’s full-year financial disclosures are expected in February.
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President Donald Trump speaks as Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. listen during an event in the East Room of the White House on January 16, 2026.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Much of the money so far has gone to online streaming, and streaming often. For the MAHA-aligned part of the Trump administration, this has created a platform for reaching the movement. Health officials regularly appear on MAHA video calls to tout wins on food and pharmaceuticals and remind voters to keep engaging.
“We as a group, this Make America Healthy Again movement, are in a position to basically determine the outcome of the midterms,”Robert Malone, a Kennedy-appointed vaccine adviser and an early pioneer of the messenger RNA technology eventually used in Covid-19 vaccines, said during a November MAHA Action call.
“The question is: will members of the House and the Senate recognize the importance of our movement, our agenda, our initiatives, the force of the interest in this, by key constituencies,” he said.
Does it translate to votes? And does it matter?
But as Kennedy and his cohort score wins in Washington, there is growing concern that vaccine policy changes could alienate average Americans ahead of the midterms.
Most voters have extreme confidence in the childhood vaccine schedule, according to Pew Research polling from November, before HHS narrowed the recommended vaccinations for most children.
December polling from Tony Fabrizio, longtime GOP strategist and 2024 pollster for Trump, show similar trends: More than 70% of voters say the benefits of common vaccinations outweigh the risks, including 6 in 10 MAHA voters, according to his polling firm FabrizioWard.
While the MAHA agenda — food policy, particularly — is widely popular across party lines, vaccine skepticism is not, including among MAHA voters, according to pollsters.
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A monitor is seen during a meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee On Immunization Practices at the Center for Disease Control headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 5, 2025. The panel of US vaccine advisers voted to revoke a longstanding recommendation that all babies receive hepatitis B shots within 24 hours of birth.
Megan Varner/Bloomberg/Getty Images
But it’s unclear if health issues such as food or chemical safety will weigh heavily on voters’ minds this year.
“Voters are sending a loud message that their biggest concern is the economy and prices,” said Doug Heye,a GOP strategist and former RNC communications director. “Other issues just have not been registering.”
Regardless of the movement’s sway in the midterms, the MAHA industrial complex is continuing to make product endorsements, sell supplements, and put out bestselling books.
While Skyhorse does not make its sales and profits public, it has touted being one of the fastest-growing independent publishers in the country, with more than 100 bestsellers to its name. Those same authors often appear in the weekly MAHA Action streaming installments.
Several of Skyhorse’s top sellers came from Kennedy, who stands to make millions more from the publishing house. The health secretary last year reported that he is owed between $2 million and $4 million for two upcoming books, “Unsettled Science” and “A Defense for Israel,” and made $450,000 from Skyhorse for consulting on book ideas and writing forewords for authors.
Kennedy is contracted for a third book with Skyhorse that he will not write or promote while serving in government, according to his financial disclosures. But his wife, Cheryl Hines, received a $600,000 advance for her November 2025 memoir, according to those documents.
Last month, Kennedy himself made a surprise appearance on a MAHA Action call, roughly an hour after standing with Trump in the Oval Office as the president signed a bill reintroducing whole milk in schools.
Following some remarks from Kennedy on the signing, Lyons told him:
“There are 7,000 influencers watching this show, and I just want you to know that they all love you, that millions of MAHA moms, you know, have your back, are fighting for you.”
“They recognize that you’ve risked everything to fight for them,” he said.
