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Big Tobacco Seizes Upon Biden’s Menthol Cigarette Ban to Try to Drive a Wedge Between Harris and Black Voters
The 30-second ad accuses Biden and Harris of being “out of touch” with the day-to-day economic concerns of Black Americans– especially job loss and inflation. “Instead of solving the problems that matter to you, Kamala Harris and D.C. Democrats are coming after your menthol cigarettes,” the narrator says. “We’ve got bigger problems to deal with, and so do Democrats,” says the ad, which includes headlines about the “border crisis” and the “fentanyl crisis” displayed on the screen.
Some analysts are skeptical that the ad has the potential to influence many Black voters. When the two group’s first tested out their new ad in South Carolina during the Democratic primary last February, they found that most of the state’s voters supported the menthol ban. Still, a significant share of Black voters responded positively to messaging that suggested that the ban would “criminalize” legal activity by Blacks and also fuel police abuses. The groups have also run the same messaging in selected congressional districts, though the results of those efforts are unknown. Apparently, they’re satisfied enough with the results to try a much larger roll-out in the swing states, knowing that razon-thin shifts in Black voting could ultimately tilt the balance in November.
Anti-smoking activists, joined by the NAACP, are appalled at the activities of Sharpton’s group and the ACLU. NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson has blasted their efforts publicly. “Tobacco use has been a serious health crisis in the African American community,” Johnson said last February. “The fact that every flavor has been banned, except the one flavor that research shows is more attractive to African Americans shows that the industry has created a discriminatory practice against the African American community.” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, the city’s first female mayor, and a close African-American ally of VP Kamala Harris, has even agreed to appear on camera in ads sponsored by the Campaign for a Tobacco-Free Future to drum up more support for the menthol ban.
But the Harris campaign isn’t taking any chances. So far, it hasn’t taken a position on the ban, and sources say it’s not planning to take a position until the election is over. That may sound like smart politics but with early voting starting shortly, in states like North Carolina, where R.J. Reynolds has its base, Harris & Co. may not have much choice but to speak out on the issue, especially as the new conservative ad campaign gathers force.
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Sure thing. Now pull the other leg:
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The conservatives are going to be soooooooo TRIGGERED and I effing love it 
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Since Harris’s campaign is now flush with cash, they and the DNC are giving a lot of money to various downballot races; mostly congressional candidates, but also various state-level ones.
This seems like very good news to me, and will give GOP even more headaches.
Kamala Harris’ campaign and the Democratic National Committee said Tuesday they are sending nearly $25 million to support down-ballot Democrats — an earlier investment and far more money than the top of the ticket has sent in past election years.
[…]
The newly announced funds come from both the Harris campaign and the DNC, with a total of $10 million each going to committees supporting Democratic candidates for House and Senate, along with $2.5 million to a national Democratic group supporting state legislative candidates and $1 million each for groups backing Democratic gubernatorial and attorney general candidates.
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Wow… but… who cares what Putin says? Like of course he is going to say that now because Trump’s chances look dismal, so the best thing for Russians and any other enemies of the US to do is to try to help convince Americans the election is rigged so that Trump can stage another coup.
The only end goal is to create chaos and disruption in the US.
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I assume it’s to make voters think that Trump is the tough guy that Putin is scared of.
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Ah that makes sense. The writing in the article is terrible and kind of pointless so it’s clearly just a clickbait headline aimed at low-information lore addicts. If I had respect to lose for Politico I’d lose some of it I guess!
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“Those most enthralled with Donald Trump were not at the very bottom — the illiterate, the hungry,” she writes. Rather, Trump’s biggest fans could be found among “the elite of the left-behind,” meaning people “who were doing well within a region that was not.”
It’s an observation that cuts against the prevailing theory of Trumpism: that he is the tribune of the left-behind and impoverished white people suffering due to globalization. It is also one that is backed by hard data.
In 2020, three political scientists studied how location and income affected white voters’ voting decisions. They found that, on a national level, poorer white people were indeed more likely to vote for Trump than richer ones.
But when you factored in local conditions — the fact that your dollar can buy more in Biloxi than Boston — the relationship reverses. “Locally rich” white people, those who had higher incomes than others in their zip codes, were much more likely to support Trump than those who were locally poor. These people might make less money than a wealthy person in a big city, but were doing relatively well when compared to their neighbors.
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That certainly makes sense for all the Trump groupies you see on TV who follow him from rally to rally decked out from head to toe in his merchandise. That’s not the kind of thing you can do unless you’ve got a decent amount of disposable income.
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The ones I know of who are in rural communities moved there to live on golf courses and escape “liberals” in the big city that made them rich.
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Which no doubt includes “those people,” who live in the “bad” part of the city. (A “great thing” about rural areas is the lack of “those people.”)
Not that they’re “racists,” oh no, never!
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Is the guy in the picture a shitty Henry Rollins clone?
Hank on seeing that guy…
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same with all the people who took time off work, flew to dc, and attacked the capitol.
working class people don’t have the time nor the money for that bs
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and yet, those are the same people who will loudly claim that food and petrol are unaffordable now and how life was soooo much cheaper and easier under trump. 
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Hell wasn’t there one lady who chartered a jet there or something? I mean I really think some of the wealthy delusional “life coach” types thought there was actually going to be like a red carpet and photoshoot set up for them when they got there.
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I generally prefer democracy as a system of government but New Zealand’s new queen kinda sounds like a badass. (And apparently the position isn’t purely a hereditary thing?)
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Trivial observation (yet it keeps rearing itself obvious at any public event), note how the spouses of the candidates are in dramatically distinct ‘concentrations’ between the Democrats and the republicans. With the latter they’re essentially non-existent (Where Is Usha? JD Vance’s Wife Takes Page Out of Melania’s Playbook) with the Democrats they’re there and a great force for the candidacy (e.g. Gwen Walz, Michigan educators back Harris-Walz campaign in Grand Rapids rally) …so much for lip-service family values toxic emissions out of vance.
if only there was the slightest active curiosity on the right to note how those closest to their ‘beloved’ candidates apparently regarded them, but nooo -sigh-
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