Rural MAHA Voters Don’t Think Trump Admin Has Helped Health In Their Communities, New Poll Shows
Most backers of the "Make America Healthy Again" movement living in rural areas do not believe the Trump administration’s health policies are actually helping their communities, per a new KFF-Associated Press poll.
Ireland Owens · Sep 30, 2026 · 2 min read
Most backers of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement living in rural areas do not believe the Trump administration’s health policies are actually helping their communities, per a new KFF-Associated Press poll.
The survey suggests that roughly 8 in 10 rural U.S. voters said the administration’s policies have had a negative impact or no effect on the health of individuals in their local communities. Particularly, 68 percent of these rural voters who said they aligned with the MAHA movement said they felt the same way, the poll shows.
The poll found that just 10 percent of rural Democratic voters said they had a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., while 74 percent of rural Republicans said the same. Roughly 5 percent of rural Democrats and 69 percent of rural Republican voters reported trusting President Donald Trump a “great deal” or “fair amount” for trustworthy health information, according to the survey.
HHS did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
The Trump administration announced Wednesday that a $20 million investment is being disbursed in an effort to bolster healthcare technology and expand patient access in rural North Carolina via the federal Rural Health Transformation Program.
“President Trump understands that every American deserves high-quality healthcare, no matter where they live,” Kennedy said in a statement. “We are putting resources directly into rural communities to strengthen the health workforce, modernize infrastructure, expand access, and bring care closer to home.”
“We are giving states the flexibility to build solutions around the people they serve, while demanding accountability for results,” he continued. “That is how we strengthen rural health, improve the lives of patients and families, and Make America Healthy Again.”
The survey of 2,241 U.S. adults registered to vote in rural areas of the nation was conducted Aug. 12-24, among a sample drawn from the probability-based SSRS Opinion Panel. The poll’s margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.
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