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<\/p>\n\n At least 125 doctors, nurses and public health experts are on the ballot for Tuesday\u2019s midterm elections \u2014 an unprecedented number from fields that historically offered fewer paths to elected office than boardrooms and courtrooms.\n <\/p>\n
\n Their campaigns emerged in the aftermath of Covid-19, when doctors and health officials were celebrated at first, overwhelmed by work and tragedy for years, and in some cases, targeted because of distrust or politics around their messages.\n <\/p>\n
\n Some candidates say they realized during that time how their training and expertise in health and science were more closely tied to government and politics than they\u2019d thought.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cOne of the things you learn to do in medicine is to listen and sit with somebody in pain and help them to clarify what the opportunities are, based on your knowledge about how the body or their health works, and I find that the work of politics is really quite similar,\u201d said Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a former health director for Wayne County, Michigan, who is running for US Senate against Republican Mike Rogers.\n <\/p>\n
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\n Dr. Amy Acton, a preventive medicine specialist who served as Republican Gov. Mike DeWine\u2019s high-profile public health director in Ohio, is running for governor as a Democrat against biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican.\n <\/p>\n
\n Democrat Xavier Becerra, a former congressman who served as President Joe Biden\u2019s secretary of health and human services, is vying for the governor in California against Republican media personality Steve Hilton.\n <\/p>\n
\n Dr. Annie Andrews, a Democrat and pediatrician in South Carolina, is running for US Senate against Republican Sen. Darline Graham.\n <\/p>\n
\n There are candidates with industry experience too, including healthcare attorney Cinde Warmington, a Democrat running to be New Hampshire\u2019s governor, and Republican Rick Jackson, founder and CEO of Jackson Healthcare, who\u2019s running to be Georgia\u2019s governor.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI haven\u2019t seen anything exactly like this before,\u201d said historian Dr. Kristoffer Shields<\/a>, director of the Eagleton Center on the American Governor at Rutgers University. \u201cThe link between science and politics has always been sort of weak.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Less than 10% of the current Congress<\/a> has a medical, public health or engineering degree. By comparison, 47% of senators and 31% of House members have law degrees.\n <\/p>\n \n Congress does have tiny but active Republican<\/a> and Democratic<\/a> doctors\u2019 caucuses. Four people with health backgrounds \u2014 all Republicans and doctors \u2014 serve in the US Senate: Wyoming\u2019s John Barrasso, Louisiana\u2019s Bill Cassidy, Kansas\u2019 Roger Marshall and Kentucky\u2019s Rand Paul. The House has 17 physicians, four dentists, two pharmacists<\/a>, a nurse practitioner<\/a>, an optometrist and a rehabilitation therapist.\n <\/p>\n \n At the state level, the ranks are even thinner, and they\u2019ve been shrinking. Only about 3% of state legislators had medical, science or engineering backgrounds as of March 2025, according to a\u202fRutgers analysis<\/a>\u202fof the Scientists in State Politics Database. That\u2019s down 25% from the year before.\n <\/p>\n \n Hawaii\u2019s Josh Green is the sole US governor with a medical degree, and no governors have a public health degree. No doctor has ever been president; the ninth president, William Henry Harrison, went to medical school but dropped out when he ran out of money to pay for it, and became a soldier instead.\n <\/p>\n \n Something seemed to change this year, said Erik Polyak, executive director of 314 Action, a political action committee that recruits, trains and helps Democrats with science, tech, engineering and math backgrounds get elected. His group has been flooded with support requests.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe\u2019ve had over 700 applications from people who want to run for office. To put that in context, it\u2019s usually been like 200 every election cycle,\u201d Polyak said.\n <\/p>\n \n The American Medical Association has long encouraged people in the profession to get involved in politics. It has two political education programs: a candidate workshop and a campaign school for members. Cassidy and Barrasso are graduates, as are US Reps. Ami Bera and Mariannette Miller-Meeks.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cAdvocacy is strongest when physicians themselves are in the room where decisions are made. As is often noted, \u2018If you\u2019re not at the table, you\u2019re on the menu,\u2019\u201d AMA President Dr. Willie Underwood said in an email to CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMore physicians running for office is a good sign. We don\u2019t think of ourselves as politicians, but we advocate for our patients every day because of prior authorization or other obstacles that prevent them from receiving care. We are accustomed to relentless advocacy.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Public health saw a similar surge in candidate interest.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI started getting calls in January and February a year ago, asking me for advice,\u201d said Dr. Kristin Hook, a former staffer at the US National Institutes of Health and the US Government Accountability Office. She lost the first time she ran as a Democrat for Texas\u2019 21st Congressional District, in 2024, but is on the ballot again this year for the same seat.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cPeople from all across the country wanted to run, and they wanted to know what I did and what I learned,\u201d she said. \u201cI had these little chats with a bunch of public health folks, all different, and many former feds who wanted to prevent what we\u2019re seeing right now.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n One strong motivator for Hook to run for office was what she sees as an attack on science by the Trump administration.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cOur country should be great. Our country should be pro-science, pro-innovation, and science keeps us safe. It protects us. It leads to wonderful discoveries, and this administration has completely burned all of that down,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n \n Hook points to the firing of thousands<\/a>\u202fof federal doctors and scientists, cuts to billions<\/a> in research funding, the removal<\/a>\u202fof entire government datasets<\/a> and\u202fpublic health<\/a>\u202fwebsites, and the undermining of longstanding public health measures like water fluoridation<\/a> and childhood vaccines<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Along with gas prices, healthcare is the biggest household expense<\/a> worrying voters, polls show<\/a>. Trump\u2019s \u201cBig Beautiful Bill\u201d is expected to cut insurance to 10 million more people<\/a>, one of the biggest rollbacks in health insurance coverage ever, experts say<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Many of the candidates with healthcare backgrounds, like most Americans<\/a>\u202fsurveyed, say they disapprove<\/a> of the current leadership at HHS.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cHHS is not a place for science deniers or science skeptics,\u201d Becerra told CNN earlier this year. \u201cWhy would you get rid of some of our best scientists and doctors and health professionals?\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI think it\u2019s a prescription for a real disaster,\u201d he added. \u201cWe deal with enough natural disasters, having to help with hurricanes, having to address pandemics, that\u2019s bad enough. But when you put on top of that these man-made disasters, then you know that America\u2019s health and America\u2019s economy are at risk.\u201d\n <\/p>\n Pandemic politics<\/p>\n \n The pandemic was also a major driver for many of the healthcare professionals now seeking office.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThey\u2019ve been under heavy political fire and either survived it or have moved on and learned from it, and it\u2019s made them that much stronger,\u201d said Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.\n <\/p>\n \n Typically, public health leaders play a vital role that\u2019s out of the spotlight. But the pandemic pushed many onto everyone\u2019s television. For some, the attention brought death threats and hate mail, and a record number quit<\/a>. Others emerged as local folk heroes.\n <\/p>\n \n Acton<\/a> says she faced a handful of protesters at her home but mostly felt support from Ohioans, many of whom watched her daily briefings with DeWine, the Republican governor. During the pandemic, her image appeared on T-shirts and a mural, and a bobblehead ad quoted the Dayton Daily News describing her as \u201cOhio\u2019s trusted face during the pandemic.\u201d A 2020\u202fNew York Times editorial<\/a>\u202fcalled Acton \u201cthe leader we wish we all had.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe love in this state was so much greater than any of the hate,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was an honor to work alongside Gov. Mike DeWine. We were totally focused on saving lives, and we definitely put people\u2019s health and well-being over politics.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n But it may be hard for public health leaders and doctors to win over voters aggrieved by pandemic-era vaccine policies, masking rules and shuttered schools and businesses.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cEspecially on the Republican side, I think there\u2019s a lot more distrust of the medical profession post-Covid,\u201d said Woodrow Johnston, a political consultant for Republican politicians. \u201cA lot of Republicans feel they were misled or even lied to when it came to government shutdowns.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Polls show that Democrats have more confidence in scientists than Republicans. However, one Pew poll<\/a> found that trust dipped during the pandemic and has ticked up more recently. Another 2026 Pew survey<\/a> found that scientists are more trusted to act in the public interest than journalists, business leaders and elected officials.\n <\/p>\n \n Not everyone realizes how much political skill public health leaders must wield to win support for their solutions, Freeman says. The pandemic tested many of them.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe serve everyone everywhere in every single community, no matter what their political leaning,\u201d she said. \u201cTo have somebody with all of this wealth of experience in different areas would help all across the board, and not just health programs. Even just to help people understand that healthiness really drives economic prosperity.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Johnston said he has helped more Republican candidates with medical or public health backgrounds win office lately. Such candidates can connect with certain voters.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cSometimes, smart people like smart people,\u201d Johnston said.\n <\/p>\n \n And their scientific expertise is needed, said Shields, the historian. Some problems are straightforward health issues, such as lack of access to care. Other problems are more existential: how to govern AI so it\u2019s safe, how to find renewable energy and how to address the climate crisis.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere\u2019s so many issues that we\u2019re facing where we need people with scientific expertise in the room,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n \n Acton says that having health professionals in higher office can help people\u2019s health, perhaps even more than an individual doctor can help a patient. She thinks of the average lifespan in the US: Advances in medicine and technology account for some improvements, but a lot of it\u2019s also due to \u201cthings that we had to solve together.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt was things like clean water, safe food, child labor laws, public school for every kid, traffic safety laws \u2013 the list goes on and on,\u201d Acton said. \u201cThat\u2019s what government\u2019s role is: a big catalyzer and convener.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n She said it was clear to her while working with DeWine during Covid-19 that the governor\u2019s job was about protecting the health and well-being of everyone.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cJust like being a doctor, we\u2019re for all patients. Being governor is actually about improving those social and economic and environmental determinants of our well-being and our prosperity,\u201d Acton said. \u201cIt\u2019s funny. You think of it as so different, but I really realized it\u2019s actually exactly what I\u2019ve been trained to do.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At least 125 doctors, nurses and public health experts are on the ballot for Tuesday\u2019s midterm elections \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,85,46],"class_list":["post-663933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Democratic](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/c-2026-10-24t224850z-991241710-rc2w9oam393b-rtrmadp-3-usa-election-texas.jpg\")
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