The Senate Finance Committee voted Tuesday to advance the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) after a pair of contentious hearings last week.

All 14 Republicans on the panel — including Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Senate Majority Whip John Barasso (R-Wyo.) — voted to support President Trump’s pick of Kennedy, with all 13 Democrats opposed.

Kennedy, 71, is expected to be considered by the full Senate sometime next week, and would clinch confirmation so long as no more than three Republicans vote against him.

Sources close to the confirmation process acknowledged that Kennedy was still “a slight wild card” but seemed on track for final approval.

The nominee could still face opposition from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who admonished Kennedy to “steer clear of even the appearance of association” with his past efforts agitating against polio vaccinations, as well as other undecided Republicans.

McConnell, the former Senate majority leader, suffered from polio as a child, which left his upper left leg paralyzed.

RFK Jr. was also vetted last week by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee — with one aide calling that hearing a “courtesy” proceeding that would not lead to a vote.

An early whip count showed that President Trump’s pick to helm HHS had nabbed the support of all 14 Finance Committee Republicans, sources previously told The Post, after facing sharp questions from Democrats about his past claims about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

HELP Chairman Bill Cassidy, who also sits on the Finance Committee, had particularly taken issue with RFK Jr.’s position that studies have linked vaccines with rising rates of autism.

Midway through the Finance hearing Tuesday, Cassidy (R-La.) revealed that he was going to back the nominee — despite leaving last week’s hearings undecided.

“I’ve had very intense conversations with Bobby and the White House over the weekend and even this morning. I want to thank VP JD specifically for his honest counsel,” Cassidy posted on X.

“With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes.”

In a Senate floor speech after Tuesday’s vote, Cassidy revealed that Kennedy had “reassured” him about his “commitment to the benefit of public health vaccination.”

He also said that the presumptive HHS chief promised to foster an “unprecedentedly close” working collaboration with him, to “meet or speak multiple times a month” with him and to allow his “input into hiring positions at HHS.”

“Based on Mr. Kennedy’s assurances about vaccines and his platform to positively influence Americans’ health, it is my consideration that he will get this done,” Cassidy added. “I want Mr. Kennedy to succeed in making America healthy again.”

In the hearings, Kennedy had insisted he was “pro-vaccine” and believed immunizations “have saved millions of lives.”

“If you show me data, I will be the first person to assure the American people that they need to take those vaccines,” he told Cassidy. “Not only will I do that, but I will apologize for any statements that misled people otherwise.”

“We can’t be going backwards with our vaccinations,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who joined McConnell and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to vote against confirming Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last month, stressed to RFK Jr. during another exchange.

“I am asking you on the issue of vaccines specifically to please convey with a level of authority and science … that these are measures that we should be proud of as a country.”

Collins has yet to make up her mind which way she will vote on Kennedy’s nomination.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) had wavered on his own support for Hegseth — but backed the defense pick in the final minutes before the Senate vote last month.

On Tuesday, Tillis acknowledged Kennedy was “not a trained health care expert” — but said he hoped the HHS secretary-designate would “go wild” as Trump asked him to reduce costs, reform benefit programs like Medicare and “improve food safety” if confirmed.

A longtime environmental lawyer, Kennedy slipped up a few times in his hearings when trying to explain the differences between key benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid but mostly stuck to his message that Trump, 78, had nominated him to “Make America Healthy Again” by ending the chronic disease epidemic and cleaning up the US food supply.

RFK Jr. also had to defend an onslaught of outlandish claims he made in the past about the virus causing COVID-19 being “ethnically targeted” against black and Caucasian people, about Lyme disease being a militarily-engineered bioweapon and about not being willing to “take sides on 9/11” — more than two decades after the national tragedy.

“Mr. Kennedy, if confirmed, will have the opportunity to deliver much needed change to our nation’s health care system,” Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said.

“He has spent his career fighting to end America’s chronic illness epidemic and has been a leading advocate for health care transparency, both for patients and for taxpayers.”

Crapo also noted that the HHS secretary-designate had answered more than 900 questions on the record from his panel alone, before urging his fellow Republicans to vote for confirmation.

The top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee countered in his remarks that Kennedy has made more than 100 “anti-vaccine” statements in recent interviews and appearances — and sidestepped questions about abortion protections during his confirmation hearing.

“Making Robert F. Kennedy secretary of Health and Human Services would, in my view, be a grave threat to the health of the American people,” declared Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a former law school classmate of RFK, had been one of the few Democrats seen as possibly amenable to his confirmation — but issued a statement Tuesday in opposition.

“Mr. Kennedy has not come remotely close to providing adequate assurances that he will follow the well-established science on vaccines, nor remedy the ways CMS hurts Rhode Island, so I cannot support his nomination,” Whitehouse said.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who professed admiration for Kennedy’s “Make America Health Again” mantra, also voted against the nominee in committee.