Implementing a flavor ban for e-cigarettes could cost U.S. President Donald Trump the election in 2020, according to Paul Blair, director of strategic initiatives at Americans for Tax Reform.
“Internal polling conducted by Americans for Tax Reform in October 2016, just five months after the Obama administration announced their own timeline for a de facto e-cigarette ban, found that four out of five adult vapers’ vote-moving issue was where a politician stood on the issue of taxing, regulating, and banning e-cigarettes,” Blair explained in The Washington Examiner.
According FDA-funded survey data, there are at least 4.15 million vapers in the 12 states that will likely determine the outcome of the 2020 election.
“If voter turnout holds flat in 2020 over 2016, there are roughly 2.55 million vaper voters scattered across these 12 key battleground states,” said Blair.
“If Trump wants to depress voter turnout or turn voters away from his winning message in states where the margin of victory could be just a few thousand votes, banning flavored nicotine e-cigarettes would be a great way to go about it.”