Why science is on the ballot in the 2026 midterm elections

Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman.

The midterm elections are fast approaching, and as usual, science is all over the ballot. Scientific American breaking news reporter Adam Kovac has been keeping an eye on how topics in science and tech have shown up in debates and campaign messaging, and he’s here to tell us more.

Hey, Adam. Thanks so much for coming on to chat with us.

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Adam Kovac: Thanks for having me, Rachel.

Feltman: So the midterms are coming up, and you’ve been talking to a few candidates about how science factors in. Why don’t we start, kind of, more broadly, you know, what are the big science issues that, you know, have people going to the polls this midterm?

Kovac: I think it kind of depends on where you stand. If you’re in the sciences or you’re a science enthusiast like many of our listeners probably are, you’re probably really worried about the big changes that have come to a lot of the governmental scientific bodies. You know, there have been huge changes that have come to the NIH [National Institutes of Health], that have come to the NSF [National Science Foundation], changes to how science gets funded.

Some people are really worried about the politicization of science. But, you know, more broadly, health care, that’s a science story, and people are really concerned about health care costs. People are really concerned about food safety. I mean, look at the Cyclospora outbreak that we had earlier this year. People are really worried about changes to the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] that have happened under Robert [F.] Kennedy, Jr. So some of the biggest issues that are going on in this election are, at their heart, science stories.

Feltman: Right. I was thinking about it, and it’s, it really has not been that long since it was sort of a question of, you know, whether your candidate said climate change was a hoax or not. And now there are so many science and tech issues that are, you know, being discussed at the micro level in debates and, you know, that people really care about going to the polls. You know, there’s AI regulation; there’s energy and food safety, like you mentioned. So I know you talked to a couple of candidates. Who have you been able to get a hold of?

Kovac: So I think the big name that most people would know is ...

[CLIP: Abdul El-Sayed speaks on a phone call: “Hey.” Kovac on the call: “Hi, is this Abdul?” El-Sayed responds: “This is Abdul.”]

Kovac: I spoke to Abdul El-Sayed, who’s running for Senate in Michigan.

He has a degree from medical school. He was never a licensed physician, which has been kind of a story that’s dogged him for the last couple of weeks. But that’s because he chose to go and get, also, a Ph.D. in public health. And so he was the head of public health in Detroit and in a county in Michigan. I, I think it’s safe to say he’s an expert in public health, and that’s really, kind of, been a core component of his messaging during the campaign, is really talking about how health policy affects the everyday person. He’s really made that, kind of, the linchpin of what he stands for in a lot of ways.

Feltman: Yeah. And how have voters been responding to that and reacting to it?

Kovac: It’s hard to say. I’ve actually never been to Michigan, so I can’t really tell you, boots-on-the-ground. You know, from my little echo chamber on my online spaces, you know, people seem to be really into it. But it does appear to be a very close race. It’s not a blowout for sure. I don’t think that Democrats are celebrating a victory in Michigan quite yet.

But it’s just become very high-profile just because, you know, he’s really good at social media, so a lot of his videos have gotten traction. You know, he is a Muslim candidate running against a white opponent. Neither candidate has really held back in their criticisms. In a lot of ways, it’s been a really ugly race, so it’s gonna be interesting to see how voters, you know, respond to the tone of the race when it comes to trying to cast their votes.

Feltman: Yeah. So as a, a public health expert, you know, what are some of the topics that he’s been making a big part of his campaign?

Kovac: So he’s kind of chosen a little bit of an interesting path because when you talk to a lot of scientists, they get very dismissive of the MAHA [“Make America Health Again”] movement. They focus on, kind of, the pseudoscience aspects of it, the focus on supplements that aren’t necessarily FDA-approved or of RFK, Jr.’s workout routines and his cooking show and his general hostility toward vaccines.

But what Abdul El-Sayed is doing is really interesting because he’s focusing on what MAHA has gotten right. He’s acknowledged that there’s a lot of distrust to the medical establishment, and he believes that’s rightfully so. You know, he lays a lot of the blame at big pharma, you know, people feeling that they can’t afford the medications or the treatments that they’re told they need.

And so, of course, you’re gonna distrust an establishment where you feel that these people don’t have your best interests at heart. That’s kind of been an interesting component of his messaging, is talking about what MAHA gets right and then trying to kind of guide them back toward more conventional medicines by trying to make that, you know, saying he wants to make this more accessible to the average person.

Feltman: So what were some of the highlights of your, uh, conversation with him? You know, were there, were there any surprises?

Kovac: Well, so one thing I really wanted to push him on was on the nuts and bolts of one of his biggest policy proposals. He’s one of the loudest proponents of Medicare for All that’s out there.

[CLIP: El-Sayed talking on his YouTube channel: “Your health insurer eats before you do. And you’re already paying for it. So imagine instead of paying that to a corporation whose CEO makes $18 million, you just paid it into FICA, and it was less.”]

Kovac: You know, he’s really taken a lot of cues from Bernie Sanders on that front.

[CLIP: Bernie Sanders talking on his Youtube channel: “To my mind, uh, our current health care system is dysfunctional, it is broken, it is wildly bureaucratic. We spend twice as much per capita as any other country on health care. I think we need to move toward a Medicare for All, single-payer system.”]

Kovac: And so there’re politicians who talk a lot about the benefits of Medicare for All, but [what] we don’t really talk about is the how of it all.

And something that I don’t think a lot of people realize is just how big of an employer private health insurance is in the United States.There are hundreds of thousands of jobs that are directly in the industry and then many, many, many more that are indirectly related to it.

You know, that’s a lot of people who rely on it to pay their mortgage, pay their rent, put food on the table. So what happens to those people when you lessen the reliance on private health insurance for people to go get their health care? That’s a lot of jobs that are at stake.

So he seems pretty confident that there is still going to be a place for private industry, in terms of how Medicare for All gets administered—and, you know, jobs that are lost in one area can be made up for in other areas—and that on the whole, this would probably be neutral or a net gain of jobs. But I just want to get that kind of into the conversation because, you know, we talk a lot about the cost of implementing this but not a lot about, kind of, the downstream effects that could be felt.

Feltman: Sure. No, it’s interesting. John Oliver recently had a Last Week Tonight episode about UnitedHealthcare and just how many arms of it there are ...

[CLIP: John Oliver speaking on HBO’s Last Week Tonight: “And while you are undoubtedly familiar with UnitedHealthcare as an insurer, because it served almost 50 million people last year, you may be less aware of the sheer scope of its parent company, UnitedHealth Group. Last year it took in $447 billion, making it the third-largest company by revenue in the U.S. That’s behind only Amazon and Walmart and above Apple.”]

Feltman: You know, how really the entire cradle-to-grave system of health care, you know, anything that touches health care, they have a huge stake in. And I hadn’t really thought about, you know, [how] the flip side of that is: How many people are employed? And that is an interesting question to get at.

What else came up in your conversation with him?

Kovac: So I asked him about, you know, what things outside of just the immediate health care system can affect people’s health—because he talks a lot about, kinda like, the systemic effects on people’s well-being and people’s health. And so there’s a lot of things he wants to touch on, you know?

I got the impression he doesn’t wanna be, like, a one-trick pony. He wants people to know that, like, he’s thought about policies in other areas. So one thing he pointed out was energy systems. We all rely on electricity, clearly. But think of some of the negative effects that can come from it. If you live near a coal-powered power station, the air you breathe can have negative effects on your health. So he really wants to focus on building high-quality renewable energy that isn’t going to have these effects on people’s health. So [he’s] really talking a lot about the social determinants of health, and I thought that was pretty interesting.

Feltman: Well, I know you also talked to a GOP candidate, and I’m curious: How was science coming up for them in the race?

Kovac: So it actually took some time to get somebody from the GOP to talk to me. Something that kinda came up when I was reporting out these interviews is that there are a lot of people with science backgrounds who are running, but it’s not evenly split between the parties. It is disproportionately people with science backgrounds running for the Democrats. But there are a few who are running for the Republicans. So I spoke to Tom Stalcup, who is running for Congress in Massachusetts. He has a Ph.D. in physics. He runs a company that does physics-associated stuff.

And the kind of interesting thing there is: he’s running in a very blue district. I think he’s a little bit of a long shot to win that race, and that kind of gives him a little bit more freedom to speak his mind. You know, he told me he believes that human-led climate change—that is a scientific fact. That is not something that you can argue with. He does not really have much patience, I got the sense, for people who argue against that.

He also talked about health care costs. He talked about putting a price cap on medications across the board, and he actually said to me, “If that sounds like socialism, then so be it.”

But he talked about just, you know, following the evidence, and he feels that both parties have really gotten away from that, of picking and choosing when science is good for their particular policy goals and ignoring it when it’s not. And he really talked about just, “No, yeah, this is, is a way of thinking. This is what was drilled into me in, when I was doing my Ph.D., and you can’t toss the scientific method away when it’s inconvenient.” So that was really his main message to me.

Feltman: Interesting. What are some science issues that are, kind, of riding on this election that, you know, you’re gonna be keeping an eye out for when we see those results?

Kovac: There’s two ways to think about this: there’s short-term and long-term. I think over the long term, if the Democrats come ahead in the House and maybe also the Senate, we could be seeing a lot of hearings of senior administration officials who are in the science-related departments. You know, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., will probably be spending a lot of time testifying about some of his policy decisions. You know, we could be seeing people from the NSF, the NIH, the CDC all having to answer for, you know, some of the policy shifts that we’ve seen.

But just in the more short term, there was one spending bill that got punted to December, and, you know, the new Congress won’t have been sworn in by then. So it’s gonna be interesting to see how the election results actually affect this pending decision on funding. One of the things that got punted was this proposed rule change that was super controversial about how science grants get administered, and that would’ve switched the decision-making from panels of peer-review experts, you know, people who really know this stuff, to political appointees. And scientists were real freaked out about this. I covered this. You had public comments from Nobel laureates saying this would be disastrous for American scientists. So after the election results come in, it’s gonna be really interesting to see how Congress decides to vote on that.

Feltman: Yeah, definitely something we’ll, we’ll have to keep our eye out for. Adam, thanks so much for coming on to chat with us.

Kovac: Rachel, it’s always a pleasure.

Feltman: That’s all for today’s episode. We’ll be back on Friday to talk about vampires. Which frankly are a little less spooky than politics.

Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Sushmita Pathak, Allison Rodgers and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Marielle Issa and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.

For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. See you next time!