Republican-led states are leading the charge to ban soda and candy from their food stamp programs, as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) movement flips traditional partisanship on its head.

Colorado is the only blue state to seek and have a soda ban waiver approved, and the only waiver state to propose expanding SNAP benefits in conjunction with limiting its scope.

Both parties at times have expressed interest in eliminating soda from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), but the Trump administration is the first to encourage states to do so.

Recent attempts at soda regulation have mostly been concentrated in blue cities. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (D) infamously tried to ban the sale of supersized sugary drinks in 2013, prompting Republicans to decry his "nanny state" tactics.

With the healthy-eating push now under the MAHA branding, GOP states are jumping aboard.

Kennedy doesn’t run SNAP — that falls under the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). But as the face of MAHA, Kennedy has been alongside Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to promote soda and candy bans.

In just the first six months of the new administration, 12 state waivers have been approved by USDA that restrict SNAP recipients from purchasing some combination of soft drinks, sugary beverages, energy drinks and candy

“We all believe in free choice, we live in a democracy ... if you want to buy sugary soda, you ought to be able to do that. The U.S. taxpayer should not pay for it,” Kennedy said during a recent press conference.

The states that have claimed waivers are Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.

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