Michael Maxsenti spent last year working on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign. But this year, Kennedy, the third-party candidate, is serving in the Trump administration, and Maxsenti is launching a congressional bid.
Maxsenti, a Republican, is running for California’s 47th Congressional District. He has a goal, he said, of advancing the “MAHA” agenda, an acronym that stands for “Make America Healthy Again” and is promoted by Kennedy, who leads the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
That goal includes “cleaning up” public health agencies and “tackling chronic disease at its root — eliminating toxic additives, pesticide residues and environmental hazards,” Maxsenti’s campaign website said. In an interview, Maxsenti said that agenda also includes preventing the pesticide industry from being able to create liability shields.
“America’s health crisis is at a tipping point. With over 40% of our population struggling with obesity, diabetes and hypertension, we must shift from a disease-care system to true health care,” Maxsenti said. “This is our moonshot moment.”
Maxsenti, an Irvine resident, said he was a lifelong Republican before he became disillusioned with the leadership of both major parties in 2010 and became an independent. He joined the Common Sense Party effort, which is not an officially recognized party in California, where they attempted “from the outside to figure out how we could break into control of our government.”
But he said he’s “proud” to be back in what he called “this new Republican leadership that is emerging” and centered on big-tent populism.
“This is the time for me to serve and give back,” Maxsenti said. “I feel uniquely qualified, and I feel the timing is right.”
Maxsenti said he wants people to give the Trump administration time to implement its agenda and show results.
“Right now, we have this unique opportunity,” Maxsenti said. “We must give the policy changes under President Trump, Secretary Kennedy and others time; they must have the time to show results.”
“If we (Republicans) don’t hold Congress, and hopefully expand it, Congress will just grind everything to a halt, and all the changes underway right now will not have the chance to show results,” he added.
Maxsenti, who raised his family in Laguna Beach and is a San Diego State alumnus, said affordability is also a focus of his campaign.
“Between the costs of housing, health care, energy and education, people are just stressed out,” he said. “It’s undermining families; it’s stopping people from wanting to have children.”
Maxsenti said an important part of his story is his decision to leave the corporate world and focus on raising his son, who was born later in Maxsenti’s life after he and his wife lost two other children.
Maxsenti is running for California’s 47th Congressional District — and that’s his plan, whether the district’s boundary lines stay the same or if voters decide to adopt new, gerrymandered maps for the 2026 elections.
As it stands now, the district — represented be freshman Rep. Dave Min, D-Irvine — stretches from Seal Beach down to Laguna Beach and juts inland to pick up communities in Costa Mesa and Irvine.
As of the latest tally from the secretary of state, Republicans have a slight advantage in the district, making up just over 35% of registered voters, while Democrats account for 34.4% and 24% are no party preference voters.
If voters adopt new congressional maps for the next three elections — proponents of the redistricting effort say this is a plan to counter similar, but opposite, efforts to gerrymander congressional maps in Texas — California’s 47th Congressional District would include Irvine and Tustin are at the northern end and pick up Lake Forest, Laguna Hills, Aliso Viejo, Laguna Beach, Laguna Niguel and Dana Point. Registered Democratic voters make up 36% of this proposed district, while 32% are Republicans and 31% are no party preference/other.
Part of Newport Beach, Huntington Beach and Seal Beach would fold into what would then be the 42nd Congressional District that also includes Long Beach.
Min is running for reelection. And Hunter Garcia Miranda, a Democrat and recent law school graduate, is also vying for the seat.
This early in his first term, Min, a former state legislator, has introduced legislation to track marine life along Southern California’s coastline and joined a bipartisan effort to boost wildfire mitigation efforts in shrubland ecosystems.
Miranda recently finished up law school at American University in Washington, D.C., and has said he is looking into doing some legal work on the side in immigration.