Democratic governors form a public health alliance in rebuke of Trump
administration
[October 16, 2025]
By GEOFF MULVIHILL and MIKE STOBBE
A group of Democratic state governors has launched a new alliance aimed
at coordinating their public health efforts.
They're framing it as a way to share data, messages about threats,
emergency preparedness and public health policy — and as a rebuke to
President Donald Trump's administration, which they say isn't doing its
job in public health.
“At a time when the federal government is telling the states, ‘you’re on
your own,’ governors are banding together,” Maryland Governor Wes Moore
said in a statement.
The formation of the group touches off a new chapter in a partisan
battle over public health measures that has been heightened by Health
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s advisers declining to recommend
COVID-19 vaccinations, instead leaving the choice to the individual.
Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, said in an email that Democratic governors who imposed school
closures and mask mandates, including for toddlers, at the height of the
pandemic, are the ones who “destroyed public trust in public health.”
“The Trump Administration and Secretary Kennedy are rebuilding that
trust by grounding every policy in rigorous evidence and Gold Standard
Science – not the failed politics of the pandemic,” Nixon said.
The initial members are all Democrats
The Governors Public Health Alliance bills itself as a “nonpartisan
coordinating hub,” but the initial members are all Democrats — the
governors of 14 states plus Guam.
Among them are governors of the most populous blue states, California
and New York, and several governors who are considered possible 2028
presidential candidates, including California's Gavin Newsom, Illinois'
JB Pritzker and Maryland's Moore.
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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks as
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz
listens during an event with President Donald Trump in the Oval
Office of the White House, Friday, Oct. 10, 2025, in Washington. (AP
Photo/Alex Brandon)
 The idea of banding together for
public health isn't new for Democratic governors. They formed
regional groups to address the pandemic during Trump's first term
and launched new ones in recent months amid uncertainty on federal
vaccine policy. States have also taken steps to preserve access to
COVID-19 vaccines.
The new alliance isn't intended to supplant those efforts, or the
coordination already done by the Association of State and
Territorial Health Officials, its organizers say.
A former CDC director is among the advisers
Dr. Mandy Cohen, who was CDC director under former President Joe
Biden and before that the head of the North Carolina Department of
Health and Human Services, is part of a bipartisan group of advisers
to the alliance.
“The CDC did provide an important backstop for expertise and
support," she said. "And I think now with some of that gone, it’s
important for states to make sure that they are sharing best
practices, and that they are coordinating, because the problems have
not gone away. The health threats have not gone away."
Other efforts have also sprung up to try to fill roles that the CDC
performed before the ouster of a director, along with other
restructuring and downsizing.
The Governors Public Health Alliance has support from GovAct, a
nonprofit, nonpartisan donor-funded initiative that also has
projects aimed at protecting democracy and another partisan
hot-button issue, reproductive freedom.
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