A pediatrician is running for Senate. Can doctors change the political debate over health and science?

After Lindsey Graham’s death, Democrat Annie Andrews finds herself in a closely watched race as she seeks to flip his Republican seat

Annie Andrews was a dark horse Democrat challenging a five-term Republican in the US Senate when 314 Action, a political action fund devoted to electing scientists and doctors, first backed her.

Now, after the unexpected death of Senator Lindsey Graham, Andrews finds herself in a closely watched race. Donald Trump persuaded South Carolina voters last week to select Graham’s sister, Darline , as the new Republican candidate. They will face off in November in an election still heavily favored to keep the seat in Republican hands in the conservative state.

Andrews, a pediatrician for 20 years, has made public health and science a central part of her campaign, highlighting the importance of vaccines as measles spread through South Carolina – and so have the other candidates supported by 314 Action.

Last year, 314 laid out an ambitious goal : elect at least 100 doctors to state and federal office by 2030. The group had an initial fundraising target of $25m, which it reached in August, to help establish Democratic doctors in state legislatures, governorships, and federal offices – “building that pipeline of talent to higher office”, said Shaughnessy Naughton, president of 314 Action.

Headlines in 2026 have been dominated by outbreaks of infectious diseases and foodborne illnesses, the biggest cuts to Medicaid in its history, the gutting of scientific research, immigration raids in hospitals, and more, making health and science salient issues in the US midterm elections.

Doctors and experts are “on the frontlines of this”, Andrews said. “I don’t think there’s ever been a more important time to elect scientists and medical doctors to all levels of our government.”

In the 2018 midterm elections, record numbers of people – nearly 200 – with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) ran for House and Senate seats. But only about 12% of the candidates won, according to research by Matthew Motta, assistant professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health .

“So to say that you want to get 100 physicians to not just run but to actually be elected to public office is quite a tall order,” he said.

Endorsement and financial support from 314 Action do increase the likelihood that Stem candidates will win, according to his research . But the goal of 100 wins in the next four years is ambitious, Motta said.

In fact, candidates with Stem backgrounds were less likely to win than non-Stem peers in 2018, according to an analysis co-authored by Meredith Conroy, political science professor at California State University, San Bernardino. They probably didn’t lose because of their science background, Conroy said, adding: “I just don’t think it was a salient enough identity at the time to suggest it made or broke their campaign.”

But recent events are changing that, making health and science a top-of-mind concern for voters, Conroy and Motta pointed out.

“It’s really important then, if we want to defend science from politicized attacks on its daily operation, that those who actually do science and who do medicine are elected to Congress,” Motta said.

State-level leadership on health will also be key as national health agencies falter and as states consider restrictive laws on issues like vaccination and reproductive health, Motta said.

Josh Green, the governor of Hawaii and an emergency physician, is the only doctor-governor in the United States right now. But he wants to feel less alone.

“We want to create a bench of people” who are better-qualified and could be appointed to positions like these, Green said. He is mentoring candidates through 314 on how to engage with constituents and “how to message in a way that political people have to master”.

There are 20 physicians in the House and Senate right now, but only six of the House representatives are Democrats , and there are no Democratic doctors in the Senate. Running for office takes deep pockets, which means doctors who are already wealthy – a group that tends to skew conservative – are more likely to be elected. Some of these doctors, like Rand Paul, have contributed to misinformation on vaccines and other health issues.

That partisan divide is increasingly evident when it comes to health, Motta noted: “Just because somebody has a scientific background does not necessarily mean that they’re going to fight for science.”

Yet electing more physicians could help repair trust in science, Naughton said, as “most people do trust their physicians and they bring a lot of credibility.” Doctor-politicians aren’t just important for opposing harmful laws or misinformation, Naughton added. They also have a fact-based approach to problem solving.

Scientists and doctors frequently go into debt for their education, making it difficult for them to leave their fields for politics, Green pointed out. He was only able to do it because he qualified for student loan forgiveness through the National Health Service Corps.

“Had I had $300,000 or $400,000 of debt, like a lot of my colleagues from medical school, I could never have run for the state house. There’s no way,” he said. “If we can seed their campaigns with enough money to get off the ground,” Green said of new candidates, “they’ll stand a chance.”

When Barbara Bollier, an anesthesiologist and a Republican-turned-Democratic state lawmaker in Kansas, decided to run for the Senate in 2020, she knew the odds were long. Kansas hadn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1932.

Even though Bollier lost that race, she still feels victorious. “I moved the ball down the field,” she said. She received more votes than any Democrat in the history of the state, she said, and when the next big health issue arose in Kansas, the state shocked the country by voting to protect abortion rights.

There’s a persistent belief that medicine and science are above politics, Naughton said, pointing out “that approach has failed us … We need folks to go beyond just signing polite letters and waiting to be tapped as scientific advisers, and actually step up and claim the seat at the table.”

And the stakes are high: “The hard truth of it is, people are going to die if we don’t follow science,” Green said.

Running for office “was not something I ever, in a million years, thought I would be doing with my life”, Andrews said. At the age of four, she told her preschool teacher she would be a doctor one day, and she never wavered from that plan. But “it became clear to me that the most effective and efficient way to solve the problems my patients and their families were facing was through politics, by changing who actually has the power, by electing people who inherently care about America’s children,” she said.

It would take decades to counter the misinformation and damage from officials currently in power, Andrews said. But she is in it for the long haul. “I’m just so happy to be a part of this movement of physicians all across the country raising their hands, stepping up to run for office,” she said.