Democratic Doctors Are Pouring Into Politics. Thank Trump and RFK Jr.

Plus: How one group is working to STEM the tide of Trumpism.

(Composite by Hannah Yoest / Photos: GettyImages / Shutterstock)

GET READY FOR the Year of the Doctor.

Political commentators called 1992 the “Year of the Woman” when a record four women were elected to the Senate. The label was revived when 102 women were elected to the House in 2018. Seven years later, there’s a new trend: Doctors and medical professionals are flooding the politics zone, with backup from scores of STEM colleagues in fields like meteorology, engineering, biology, technology, and math.

Already in this 2025–26 cycle, 314 Action—dedicated to helping Democrats with science backgrounds win local, state, and federal elections—says more than 150 doctors have reached out about running for office in nearly three dozen states. The group, cheekily named after pi, expects a historic wave of doctors and scientists to launch campaigns.

The first record-setting year for women followed outrage at the all-white, all-male Senate Judiciary Committee minimizing law professor Anita Hill’s 1991 allegations of sexual harassment against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. The second came in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2016 Electoral College victory, despite his infamous “grab them by the pussy” Access Hollywood tape, multiple women accusing him of sexual misconduct, and the 2017 start of the #MeToo movement.

Shaughnessy Naughton, president of 314 Action, says this year’s wave of STEM candidates arises from the constant assaults on science, data, and public health by the Trump administration and “a complicit Republican Congress,” epitomized by the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In his nearly two hundred days as secretary of health and human services, this anti-vaccine conspiracymonger has unleashed daily onslaughts of disinformation, misinformation, confusion, and policies that endanger American lives and health.

“That has motivated a lot of folks from health backgrounds to see this as a moment where there’s only so much they can do from within their exam rooms. If they want to have a greater impact on improving the outcomes and lives of their patients and community, we need them to step up and get elected,” Naughton, a chemist, said in an interview. “They need to go beyond waiting to be tapped for their expertise and really claim a seat at the table.”

Health issues, including insurance access, COVID, gun violence, and abortion rights, have been undercurrents ever since Naughton founded 314 Action in 2016 after losing a House primary in Pennsylvania. But now public health and eroding access to care are defining issues. Between RFK Jr.’s distortions and Trump’s new law cutting Medicaid access and Affordable Care Act subsidies, it should not be surprising that, according to Naughton, two to three doctors a week are launching campaigns at all levels of government.

One of her group’s current marquee candidates is former Ohio Health Department Director Amy Acton, a physician running virtually even with MAGA poster boy Vivek Ramaswamy in the 2026 Ohio governor’s race. Other 314-backed candidates include at least two with a notable combination of medical credentials and the military service Democrats often rely on to signal they are tough and patriotic. Both are running for U.S. House seats currently held by Republicans.

Kishla Askins, a physician assistant, 30-year military veteran, and former deputy assistant veterans affairs secretary, is in a crowded primary to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon in a Democratic-leaning Omaha district. Darren McAuley, a combat veteran, flight surgeon, Florida Air National Guard member, and former Veterans Health Administration doctor, now at the Orlando College of Osteopathic Medicine, is challenging first-term GOP Rep. Laurel Lee for a Tampa-area seat.

Naughton compares her group, which has six million grassroots donors and supporters, to a business incubator. She describes a soup-to-nuts approach tailored to political novices: find pickup opportunities, recruit candidates, help them put together a team, a staff, a finance plan, and a communications strategy, help them fundraise and prepare for debates, and make direct campaign donations as well. Former STEM employees across the federal government—fired, laid off, or so disgusted they quit—are not yet in the mix of recruits, but that could change in the coming months.

In 2024, Naughton said, 314 Action helped elect seven House members, six of them state legislators who had received the group’s help to get that foothold in politics. “It reinforced how important it is to invest at all levels. We built a pipeline of talent,” Naughton said.

She and the 314 team have already endorsed 113 candidates in 2025 state and local races for legislature, mayor, city council, school boards, and other offices. They haven’t yet started to look at downballot 2026 races, most of which have yet to launch, but they are already working with nearly fifty 2026 candidates for House, Senate, and governor.

House endorsements include an Iowa engineer, an Illinois mathematician, and a Minnesota doctor who are challenging Republican incumbents. Statewide, the group has officially endorsed Acton for Ohio governor and South Carolina pediatrician Annie Andrews, one of several Democrats vying to take on Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. Longer term, 314 Action has named Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (a family doctor) and Rep. Lauren Underwood (a nurse) co-chairs of a $25 million initiative that aims to elect 100 health professionals to local, state and federal office by 2030. The group made a splash last week by pledging $1 million to California’s Democratic redistricting project, part of its larger commitment to flipping House seats in the state.

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A DIGITAL AD THAT RAN in June in swing House districts—part of what 314 Action calls its ongoing, seven-figure advocacy campaign to hold Trump’s anti-science administration accountable—underscores the group’s broader mission of restoring science as a pillar of American leadership. The ad showcases John F. Kennedy and his presidential successors to illustrate the advances that made the United States a superpower. They all got it, and they all cared—until Trump, who is cutting billions, creating a brain drain, and handing competitive opportunities to China, especially on manufacturing related to climate change.

Public health is at the forefront these days for obvious reasons, yet climate change is an equally crucial issue that also bears on health and safety. Fires, floods, hurricanes, and other disasters are becoming more frequent and intense due to warming fueled by continued reliance on fossil fuels. At the same time, the Trump administration is rolling back clean energy projects and incentives while trying to kill the 2009 “endangerment finding” that authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

So why aren’t climate scientists, like doctors, running for office in droves? It’s a complicated issue, for a start, and tough to explain in catchy campaign-trail prose. It’s also much less urgent and personal to potential constituents than threats to their own health. But there is a route that shows promise—TV weather people who have been fixtures in voter living rooms for years.

In 2023, Rep. Eric Sorenson of Illinois called himself “the first former television meteorologist in Congress in more than four decades.” 314 Action helped him win in 2022 and 2024, and he’s already on its 2026 endorsement list of “House STEM Trailblazers.” Now the group is working with Sean Sublette, a TV meteorologist for over twenty years and former chief meteorologist at the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He just launched a campaign to flip a coastal House district in Virginia.

Sublette’s donation page has a simple message: “Help Sean bring science to Congress.” That’s leaning in to truth, and we should all be there for it—all of us in both parties.