What We Know About 314 Action’s Pro-Science Midterm Sweep

A pediatrician in South Carolina, a physician running for Ohio governor, an epidemiologist seeking a Michigan Senate seat, and a Western North Carolina farmer-legislator each won their races this week with the backing of the same political action committee: 314 Action Fund. The group's congressional candidates won more than 80 percent of their races this cycle, according to founder Shaughnessy Naughton, in what WIRED described as a wave of doctors and scientists entering elected office.

The common thread among the winners is scientific or medical training paired with 314 Action's money and organizing muscle. Naughton, a chemist who founded the PAC after losing her own congressional bid in 2016, says the results reflect a deliberate strategy. "We really benefit by having those data-driven, fact-based decisionmakers actually in a position at the governing table," she told WIRED.

What is 314 Action and how much did it spend?

314 Action Fund is a political action committee built around electing candidates with scientific or medical backgrounds. This cycle it spent more than $30 million donating to and supporting campaigns, including direct fundraising for individual races, Naughton said. The PAC raised $3.6 million for pediatrician Annie Andrews in her race for the South Carolina Senate seat previously held by Lindsey Graham, and another $3 million for physician Amy Acton's campaign in Ohio's governor race, according to Naughton's figures cited by WIRED.

Which candidates won?

Among the winners WIRED identified: Michigan senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed, an epidemiologist; South Carolina senator-elect Annie Andrews, a pediatrician; Ohio governor-elect Amy Acton, a physician; and North Carolina representative-elect Jamie Ager. The PAC's congressional slate saw 14 of 17 House candidates win, and nine of those victories flipped seats from Republican to Democratic control, per the outlet's reporting. Down-ballot, the group backed hundreds of additional winning candidates, including an oncology nurse-practitioner, a mathematician, a microbiologist, a nuclear engineer, and an agricultural scientist who flipped their districts.

By the numbers

• $30 million-plus: 314 Action's total spending this cycle, per Naughton
• 80 percent-plus: the PAC's win rate among its congressional candidates
• 14 of 17: House candidates backed by the group who won their races
• 9: seats flipped from Republican to Democrat among those wins

Why did health care dominate this election?

Naughton called the results straightforward: "It did turn out to be a health care election," she told WIRED. Richard Frank, director of the Brookings Institution's Center on Health Policy, said medical and scientific professionals have long served in Congress but not in this concentration. "What is unusual," Frank said, "is just how many came in one wave." He linked the surge to friction between the Trump administration and scientific institutions. "Science has been under attack," Frank said. "It's not surprising that scientists have recognized that, and some of them went out and ran for Congress."

What explains the surge in scientist-candidates?

Rutgers Eagleton Institute of Politics historian Kristoffer Shields pointed to two forces. "Some of it certainly is a reaction to what's been happening at the federal level, the defunding of a lot of laboratories and scientific exploration," he told WIRED. Shields also traced the trend to the pandemic era, when health care workers began weighing how political decisions shape public health outcomes.

El-Sayed's own campaign leaned on that argument directly. He pointed to a cyclospora outbreak that sickened Americans this past summer, tying it to federal cuts. "We DOGE'd our whole service that keeps the lettuce safe," he told WIRED earlier this year, referring to layoffs at the Food and Drug Administration carried out under the Department of Government Efficiency initiative. WIRED also noted that 314 Action faced scrutiny in 2024 over past acceptance of funding from groups with outside ties, a detail the outlet flagged without further elaboration in available reporting.

What to watch

• Whether the incoming scientist- and physician-legislators form a working bloc on health and research funding votes.
• How 314 Action's fundraising model scales ahead of the next federal budget fights over agency science funding.
• Whether Republican strategists respond with their own medical or scientific recruits in future cycles.
• Continued coverage of the cyclospora outbreak and any FDA staffing changes tied to the DOGE-driven layoffs El-Sayed referenced.

For the full reporting and additional candidate detail, read WIRED's original account.