The 2026 midterms handed Democrats control of both chambers of Congress, a decisive rebuke of the Trump administration’s agenda. But a wave election is not a mandate for complacency. Nowhere is the imperative for swift, substantive action clearer than in the restoration of the nation’s biomedical research enterprise. Two years of politically motivated grant cancellations, ideological screening of science, and proposed budget cuts have inflicted measurable damage on the National Institutes of Health and the broader research ecosystem. Democrats must now move from opposition to reconstruction—and they must do so with the urgency the crisis demands.
The damage is well documented. The administration proposed a 40 percent cut to NIH funding, moved to cap indirect cost reimbursement at 15 percent, and established mechanisms for political appointees to veto research deemed insufficiently aligned with the president’s agenda. Roughly $1.4 billion in NIH and NSF funding remained frozen or cancelled earlier this year, and the loss of USAID eliminated approximately $25 billion in global health research capacity. Early-career researchers—the backbone of future innovation—have been disproportionately affected, with surveys indicating that a majority have considered leaving the country. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that a 10 percent NIH cut translates to roughly 20 fewer approved drugs per decade. This is not abstract policy; it is the foregone treatment that a patient will never receive.
The good news is that Congress has already demonstrated that the administration’s worst proposals are not inevitable. The February 2026 spending bill rejected the president’s NIH cuts and included a $415 million increase over prior levels, along with language blocking the indirect-cost cap. That bipartisan outcome provides a foundation. But a one-year appropriations patch is not a strategy. Democrats should pursue three concrete priorities in the first 100 days.
First, legislate protections against political interference in grantmaking. The House Democratic health working group has already identified restoring withheld NIH funding and preventing political appointees from overriding scientific funding decisions as a first-100-hours priority. This should be codified, not merely funded. A statutory firewall requiring that NIH grant decisions be made by scientific review panels—and prohibiting White House or OMB review of individual awards—would make it harder for any future administration to repeat the current one’s tactics.
Second, restore the research pipeline for early-career investigators. The brain drain is not hypothetical; it is happening in real time. A dedicated tranche of NIH funding for first-time R01-equivalent grants, coupled with loan repayment expansion for early-stage researchers, would signal that the United States intends to remain a destination for scientific talent rather than a source of it. This is not merely generous; it is competitive. Other nations are watching, and some are recruiting.
Third, rebuild the public-health research infrastructure that was dismantled alongside NIH. The closure of USAID and the hollowing out of global health surveillance programs have weakened America’s capacity to detect and respond to infectious threats before they reach American shores. Democrats should propose a targeted reinvestment in international research partnerships—not as charity, but as intelligence gathering for biosecurity.
The political temptation, after a wave election, is to overreach. The voters who delivered this majority were rejecting the administration’s agenda more than they were endorsing a detailed Democratic platform. That is precisely why medical research is the right place to start. Restoring NIH funding and protecting scientific integrity from political meddling are not partisan causes; they are conditions for the next generation of cures. Democrats should dare Republicans to oppose them—and then deliver.
