The U.S. Senate’s confirmation of anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as HHS secretary is being taken by both anti-vaccine forces, as well as by defenders of the crucial role vaccinations play in public health as a sign of the increased mainstream acceptance of what was once considered the fringe beliefs of the anti-vax movement.

UT/TxPP polling suggests that while Kennedy himself has achieved a degree of favorable reviews among a non-trivial share of Texas voters (though a declining share over time), views of the safety and efficacy of vaccines remain significantly less widespread than the mainstreaming of RFK, Jr. as a public figure might suggest.

In August of 2023, 34% of Texans held a favorable view of RFK, Jr., peaking in December at 36%, and then declining to 34% in April of last year and 27% by June. Views among Republicans over that same time period declined as well, from 43% to 29%. Whether Donald Trump’s elevation and Senate confirmation send strong signals, primarily to Republicans, about RFK’s worthiness remains to be seen. Given Trump’s stature among his partisans, the smart money is on a rise in his stock among the base.

While RFK’s public health views are generally myriad and heterodox, his most known public position is his vaccine skepticism, a polite statement of his on-the-record opposition in some cases – positions he soft-pedaled in his confirmation hearings. 

When it comes to vaccines, the political dynamics of COVID, shutdowns, government and employer mandates, and misinformation, it’s easy to assume a high degree of vaccine skepticism in the public, but that would be wrong. As recently as December of last year, only 12% of Texans said that they thought vaccines were unsafe, while only 9% said that they thought they were ineffective. To the extent that vaccination has become a hot-button issue in some corners, vaccine skepticism remains a niche issue in terms of public support, despite the hazards to public health posed by decreases in the overall vaccination rate. 

Among all Texas voters, however, 70% think vaccines are safe, 72% think they’re effective, and 72% think that governments should require parents to have their children vaccinated against infectious diseases — a not irrelevant concern here in Texas.

To the extent that assessments of Kennedy are affected by views of vaccination, partisan differences may also contribute to an increase in Kennedy’s standing among Texas Republicans in the wake of his elevation by Trump. Both the magnitude and intensity of beliefs in the safety and efficacy of vaccines are lower among Republicans than among Democrats. Vaccine skepticism is still the minority position among both partisans by large margins, but the differences between partisans is significant.

Among Democrats, there is near unanimity that vaccines are either entirely (27%) or mostly (59%) safe, with only 3% deeming them “mostly unsafe” and less than half of 1% deeming them entirely unsafe. Similarly high shares deem immunization effective.

By contrast, among Republicans, the majority that deem vaccines safe are smaller and much less intense: 7% deem vaccines “entirely safe,” and about half (51%) deem them “mostly safe.” But nearly one in five find them “mostly “(13%) or “entirely” (6%) unsafe - with a similar share neutral (19%) and another 4% having no opinion. As with Democrats, Republicans’ judgements about the effectiveness of vaccines track closely with views of their effectiveness.

Whatever the impact of vaccines attitudes on assessments of the new HHS Secretary, it does appear that the surge in vaccine skepticism among Texans, especially but not exclusively among Republicans, has ebbed. This is likely a result of a shift in the focus of these attitudes from the rapidly developed COVID-19 vaccines to a more general assessment of vaccines. As the partisan framing of issues related to the pandemic took hold, skepticism of vaccines in general spiked: In October 2022, a quarter of Texas voters (25%) did not think vaccines were effective, including more than a third (39%) of Republicans (compared to 8% of Democrats and 28% of independents). If RFK, Jr., benefits politically from partisan patterns in the market for vaccine skepticism, he may have missed the peak.