Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, told voters gathered at the Friendship Baptist Church in Aiken, South Carolina, this spring why she was running for the Senate, she explained that she wanted to fix the U.S.

health care system and fully fund Medicaid.

But she got the biggest cheers of all when she pledged to “lead the charge to impeach and remove RFK Jr.” Her criticisms of Health Secretary Robert F.

Kennedy Jr., who has brought his brand of vaccine skepticism to the highest echelons of the federal government, struck a nerve in South Carolina, the state with the largest measles outbreak in the country.

Andrews, 45, is among more than three dozen Democratic doctors, nurses and other health professionals who have jumped into this year’s races for Congress, in what they hope will offer a chance to push back against the health policies of the Trump administration and Kennedy.

Dozens more are running in down-ballot races, and a few are running for governor in Maine, Ohio and Wisconsin.

There have been indications that the White House is beginning to see vaccine skepticism as a vulnerability in the midterms: This week President Donald Trump selected Dr.

Erica Schwartz, a physician who supports vaccines, as his nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Kennedy has largely stopped talking about vaccines in recent weeks.

For some of the doctors running for office, like Andrews, the elevation of Kennedy to a health leadership role was the breaking point.

For others, it was reductions to safety net programs like Medicaid and the decision to let federal health insurance subsidies expire.

For still others, it was the Trump administration’s cuts to the U.S.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs, enacted to reduce federal spending and advance Trump’s policy priorities.

These candidates are putting health care front and center in their campaigns, often linking it to concerns about affordability, an issue that dominates voters’ priorities.

Kennedy and his Make America Healthy Again movement, which is focused on healthy eating, removing toxins from the environment and reducing corporate influence in the food and pharmaceutical industries, helped propel Trump to victory in 2024.

Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said that in the past year, the agency has driven “historic” reforms, including overhauling food policy, lowering drug prices and investing in rural health.

He added that recent surveys “make it clear that Secretary Kennedy’s priorities resonate across party lines.” But support from MAHA leaders has splintered, and Kennedy’s embrace of unscientific anti-vaccine theories and other policies have become a political liability.

Still, there is no guarantee these medical professionals will have an easy time winning election.

Some are running against incumbents with big fundraising advantages and strong name recognition.

Many are new to politics.

There are 16 physicians serving in the U.S.

House and four in the Senate.

Most of them are Republicans.

Doctors associations have historically leaned conservative, dating back at least to the American Medical Association’s opposition to the creation of Medicare in 1965.

There are signs that may be changing.

“Over the last few years, scientists have been politicized,” said Kristoffer Shields, director of the Eagleton Science and Politics Program at Rutgers-New Brunswick.

A 2014 paper in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine found that since the 1990s, physician campaign contributions had shifted away from Republicans and toward Democratic candidates.

More women have also become doctors over time, and they tend to cluster in fields that lean Democratic, like pediatrics and obstetrics/gynecology.

In 2018, Dr.

Kim Schrier, a pediatrician from Washington state, was elected to Congress, flipping a red district blue.

A nurse, Lauren Underwood, did the same in Illinois.

Josh Green, an emergency room physician, was elected governor of Hawaii in 2022, and more Democratic doctors were elected to Congress in 2024.

The Democratic candidates running this year include family physicians, pediatricians, emergency room doctors and nurses.

In South Carolina, Andrews, who worked for 14 years at MUSC Children’s Hospital in Charleston, is competing in a June primary and hopes in November to challenge Sen.

Lindsey Graham, the longtime Republican incumbent who is widely expected to win reelection.

But at the church in Aiken, she made clear that her real target was Kennedy.

“The day I decided to enter this race was the day that RFK Jr.

was nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services,” Andrews said.

“He’s been my professional archnemesis for decades, and any other pediatrician in this....