Americans Are Already Sick of RFK Jr., Poll Finds

While U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may be trying to “Make America Healthy Again,” it turns out plenty of Americans are already sick of him. A new poll finds that only one-third of people actually approve of how RFK Jr. is handling his job.

The findings come from the most recent Quinnipiac University poll released this month, which surveyed around 1,200 registered voters across the country. Exactly 33% of respondents said they currently approved of Kennedy’s stint as HHS secretary, while 54% disapproved. The numbers are a noticeable drop from a similar poll conducted earlier this year, prior to the internal collapse of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention set off by RFK Jr.’s antivaccine agenda.

RFK’s waning popularity

Kennedy has never enjoyed immense popularity among Americans, but it certainly looks like he’s lost more ground as of late.

In both a March and June poll from Quinnipiac, RFK Jr. had a 38% approval rating, though a slightly higher disapproval rating (53%) in June. Other recent polls have highlighted RFK Jr.’s flagging perception among Americans, too, such as a Washington Post-Ipsos poll this September that documented a 42% approval rating.

Since taking over HHS, Kennedy has pledged to drive down rates of chronic disease in the U.S., particularly in children. But more often than not, his decisions and policy changes have garnered widespread criticism from public health experts, including within the federal government.

In late August, former CDC director Susan Monarez was fired for reportedly refusing to rubberstamp the recommendations of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), all of whom had been handpicked by Kennedy after he unilaterally terminated the existing members. Some of these new ACIP members already had a documented history of misrepresenting the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, while others had financially benefited from attacking vaccines. In just two meetings so far, the new ACIP has successfully pushed for the removal of several vaccines from either the market or the childhood vaccine schedule with little scientific backing.

Kennedy has also promised to tackle the entirely made-up threat of chemtrails, diagnosed everyone’s kids with massive mitochondria problems, and endorsed the widely unsupported idea that acetaminophen use during pregnancy is causing autism.

Vaccines remain on top, for now

Though some Americans have started to buy more into the false propaganda of the anti-vaccination movement lately, vaccines overall remain more popular than RFK Jr.

The latest Quinnipiac poll found that 67% of Americans supported having “vaccine requirements for children attending public schools,” with even a slight majority of Republican-identifying respondents (46%) saying yes.

“Keep mandatory vaccines in place for public school kids, say a large majority of voters. That sentiment is expressed as voters give a clear thumbs down to the overall recommendations by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” said Quinnipiac polling analyst Tim Malloy in a statement.

Unfortunately, these waning numbers for RFK may not mean all that much. According to the Quinnipiac poll, 71% of Republicans still approve of Kennedy as HHS chief. And while some members of the GOP have become more critical of RFK Jr.’s performance, especially following the CDC defection, many are still roundly in his corner—most notably President Donald Trump himself.

Last week, RFK Jr. stood shoulder to shoulder with Trump during the latter’s big autism announcement, and both men eagerly took time to go off-script and promote antivaccination talking points, such as the idea that children today are taking too many shots at once.

Americans might not like Kennedy all that much, but Trump sure seems to still have his back.