Kidney Patients Launch 50 State Nonpartisan Voter Registration Drive

People Living with Cardio, Kidney, and Metabolic Disorders Engaged

"50 States in 50 Days" Campaign Expands Impact of KidneyVoters™

WASHINGTON, Sept. 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Association of Kidney Patients (AAKP), the nation's oldest and largest independent and nonpartisan kidney patient advocacy organization, today announced the rollout of its 2026 national KidneyVoter™ campaign, "50 States in 50 Days." KidneyVoters™ use their voices, votes, sophisticated organizing tools, and social media to turn out like-minded voters, hold Congress accountable for decisions impacting patient care choice, and to encourage oversight of federal agencies responsible for red tape that stymies patient health, continued employment, and survival.

The KidneyVoter™ campaign engages and mobilizes kidney patients, living organ donors, families, care partners, advocates, researchers, healthcare professionals, and employees of small and large companies involved in kidney care innovations. For 2026, AAKP has expanded the program to serve patient and professional communities impacted by Cardio-Kidney-Metabolic (CKM) Syndrome and related health issues. The KidneyVoter™ platform now serves heart disease advocates, the diabetes community, and patients suffering from bone and mineral disorders.

Kidney disease impacts more than 37 million Americans and their families. Further, interrelated cardiovascular, kidney, and metabolic diseases have impacted more than 25% of the adult population and are a leading cause of death.  More broadly, an estimated 90% of U.S. adults, or approximately 240 million people, have some degree of interconnected cardiovascular, kidney, or metabolic health conditions according to the American Heart Association.

Since 2017, the KidneyVoters™ campaign has been the only non-partisan voter registration campaign serving the broader and highly diverse kidney community. In 2024, AAKP engaged over 500,000 KidneyVoters™, creating a new "micro-constituency" within the American electorate according to election data science and targeting experts. The 2026 KidneyVoter™ campaign follows AAKP's recent bipartisan All Kidney Policy is Local™ national campaign, which connected patients, organ donors, and caregivers to U.S. Congressional leaders in their home district offices and online during the Congressional summer recess. The campaign has resulted in over 300 targeted legislative and policy meetings with top Congressional decision-makers since 2025.

The AAKP 2026 KidneyVoter campaign began with briefings for key grassroots influencers and grasstops thought and organizational leaders. AAKP members and state Ambassadors were trained to engage their individual circles and networks on social media. Executives in industries driving kidney care innovation, major professional medical societies, and Washington, D.C.-based government affairs groups, including the Washington Health Innovation Council (WHIC), were encouraged to share the campaign with their employees and members. Both the KidneyVoter™ and the All Kidney Policy is Local™ campaigns are central elements of AAKP's Decade of the Kidney™ initiative, which supports kidney care innovation and implementation of the larger national kidney policy goals first outlined in the historic, bipartisan 2019 Executive Order on Advancing Kidney Health.

AAKP President Edward V. Hickey, III, a chronic kidney disease patient, stated, "Decisions made by our elected and appointed leaders have a very real impact on kidney patients—from research and innovation to access to new treatments, transplantation, and patient care choice. The nonpartisan KidneyVoter™ registration campaign does not tell patients and allies how to vote. Instead, AAKP reminds patients that their voice and their vote matter. We want policymakers from every political party to understand that kidney patients, families, healthcare professionals, and the broader kidney community are informed and motivated. Patient engagement matters not only in the exam room, but also in the halls of government, too." Hickey is a U.S. Marine Corps Veteran, a former senior Congressional aide, and has served in appointed roles in two presidential administrations. He currently serves on the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM) Nephrology Specialty Board and as the Chair of the AAKP Veterans Health Initiative.

AAKP Vice President and Chair of Policy Paul T. Conway, a 49-year kidney patient and 29-year transplant recipient, stated, "Kidney patients, people impacted by related chronic diseases, and organ donors are intelligent consumers of healthcare and are as concerned about wasteful taxpayer spending as any other citizen. They have more real-world insights on how innovation and transplantation positively impact life than many experts. Congress and Congressional candidates from all political parties should listen closely to patient concerns and help solve their problems, including lack of access to new, life-saving innovations. Living organ donors need the job protections provided by the U.S. Department of Labor under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) in 2018 to be made permanent. They also need an end to insurance discrimination based solely on their decision to save another life. And America needs a screening recommendation for kidney disease to save more lives and to bring an end to the decades-long incompetence of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF)." Conway is a former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. He served two terms as inaugural Chair of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Patient Engagement Advisory Committee (PEAC).

AAKP advocates and kidney community allies have been working to advance passage of the Living Donor Protection Act (LDPA), S. 1552/H.R. 4582 and H.R. 4583. The bill protects living organ donors from insurance and job discrimination based solely on their decision to donate a kidney to save another life, barriers cited most often by potential organ donors. The bipartisan legislation is co-sponsored by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK) and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and was voted out of the Senate HELP Committee on February 26, 2026, with strong support for the bill's consensus language and the endorsement of AAKP, the larger kidney community, and the American Council of Life Insurance (ACLI). In 2018, AAKP and transplant professionals worked with the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to have DOL issue FMLA protections to living organ donors, based on the original intent of the FMLA's Congressional co-sponsors (click here to read the letter and click here to watch the video). Congressional passage of the LDPA will codify the DOL's 2018 FMLA job protections at a time when falling living organ donation rates have escalated Congressional concerns about transplantation.

AAKP advocates help kidney community efforts, coordinated by the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) (view report), to expand Congressional appropriations and taxpayer investments in kidney science and research by up to $1.8 billion, through the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Defense. AAKP is committed to American leadership in the discovery of safe, next-generation kidney technologies while counteracting the pacing threat of communist China and its state-orchestrated efforts to dominate biotech, manipulate the drug supply chain, and limit patient choice.

AAKP provides advocacy skills and social media training for patients and organ donors through its Center for Patient Engagement and Advocacy and through its National Patient Meeting with a faculty of allied government affairs and political experts. The 2026 AAKP National Patient Meeting, held in Little Rock, Arkansas, involved more than 30 expert speakers.

Follow AAKP on social media at @kidneypatient on Facebook, @kidneypatients on X, and @kidneypatients on Instagram, and visit http://www.aakp.org for more information. AAKP patient advocates advance bipartisan kidney policy including:  passage of the bipartisan law modernizing the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN)  (2023); lifetime transplant drug coverage for  kidney patients (2020);  the historic Executive Order on Advancing American Kidney Health signed by President Donald Trump (2019); job protections for living organ donors under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) via the U.S. Department of Labor (2018); and  Congressional approval  of HIV positive organ transplants for HIV positive patients (2013).   

MEDIA CONTACT:
Brendan LaCivita
National and Medical Media Specialist
[email protected]
(813) 906-7740

SOURCE American Association of Kidney Patients