Could banning menthol cigarettes hurt President Biden’s re-election prospects in 2024?

Fears that it could are likely behind the administration’s delay in finalizing federal rules to remove menthol cigarettes from the market. Nearly 85 percent of Black smokers use menthol cigarettes, compared to just 30 percent of white smokers, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Mr. Biden needs high Black turnout — a crucial part of the Democratic coalition — to win in 2024.

Democrats are worried about recent polls that show a hemorrhaging of support for Mr. Biden among Black Americans. An October New York Times/Sienna poll of battleground states found President Trump earning an unprecedented 22 percent support from Black voters. For context, Mr. Trump earned just 8 percent of the Black vote in 2020.

No Democratic presidential candidate has received less than 80 percent of the Black vote since the civil rights era. Black turnout dipped in 2022, and Democrats fear low Black turnout and a drift — particularly among Black men — to the Republican Party in 2024 could spell trouble for their party’s prospects.

In the works for years, the finalized rules for the menthol cigarette ban were first expected to be released in August, then pushed to the end of the year. Now, according to reports from the Washington Post and New York Times, the administration is delaying announcing its finalized rules for the ban until March — or maybe even later in 2024.  

“All decisions made by government are made for political reasons. They’re often good public policy arguments attached, but they’re generally about politics,” a Democratic strategist, Hank Sheinkopf, tells the Sun of the delay. “This is about not inflaming people who enjoy smoking menthol cigarettes, and also about corporations or other individuals who make money selling menthol products.”

“Controversy costs votes,” Mr. Sheinkopf adds, and says Mr. Biden can’t afford it.

The proposed ban is dividing Black leaders. The Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP support a menthol cigarette ban. Reverend Al Sharpton and civil rights attorney Ben Crump oppose it, as does the American Civil Liberties Union.

Several Republican congressional leaders have also come out against the ban, arguing it will create a dangerous, cartel-fueled black market. Governor DeSantis also opposes the ban. Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s director of communications, Tricia McLoughlin, tells the Sun, “He would reverse the ban.”

There are about 18.6 million smokers of menthol cigarettes in the United States. The FDA says that menthol cigarettes are a gateway to smoking for youth because they “masks unpleasant flavors and harshness of tobacco products.” It says that menthol cigarettes “can also be more addictive and harder to quit” and that banning them will help Americans — particularly “communities of color, low-income populations, and LGBTQ+ individuals” — quit and save lives.

“For far too long, certain populations, including African Americans, have been targeted and disproportionately impacted by tobacco use,” the director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, Mitch Zeller, said in 2021 when announcing the rulemaking process for the ban.

While health organizations such as the American Cancer Society support a menthol cigarette ban, there is competing research that shows menthols are not more addictive than unflavored cigarettes and that quit rates between the two are nearly indistinguishable. A preprint study in the Lancet found that a 2020 ban of menthol cigarettes in Poland, which had comparable use rates to America, did not reduce overall smoking. Menthol smokers just switched to unflavored cigarettes.  

The political split among Black leaders, though, is not about competing health evidence. Opponents question the targeted prohibition of a product favored by Black Americans, and they say it will lead to more police interactions and racial disparities in enforcement. The FDA says it will not target individual users of menthol cigarettes — only manufacturers, distributors, and sellers — but that is not assuaging concern.

“Menthol prohibitions will create illicit markets and more police interaction, especially in minority communities,” a letter from the National Action Network, signed by Reverend Sharpton, to Food and Drug Administration commissioner Robert Califf says. “For example, Eric Garner was a black killed by the NYPD for selling loose, untaxed cigarettes.”

“Advocates for the proposed rule have not been able to explain why the preferred product for black adult smokers will be subject to ban while the select products of most will remain legal and available,” the NAN letter says.

Mr. Crump, who represented Eric Garner’s family in a wrongful death suit, reportedly met with Mr. Califf and the Health and Human Services secretary, Xavier Becerra, last month to warn against instituting a menthol cigarette ban. “How about the cigarettes that white people smoke?” Mr. Crump said on “The Bakari Sellers Podcast” last year.

The ACLU is on the same page. “It is now clear that policies that amount to prohibition have serious racial justice implications,” a senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, Aamra Ahmad, said in a statement. “There are serious concerns that the ban implemented by the Biden administration will eventually foster an underground market that is sure to trigger criminal penalties which will disproportionately impact people of color and prioritize criminalization over public health and harm reduction.”

The NAACP, though, disagrees. “We do not agree with the tobacco industry’s message and strategy presented by a few Black leaders: prohibiting menthol cigarettes would be discriminatory. We reject this view,” a letter from NAACP president, Derrick Johnson, to the Health and Human Services secretary says. “The failure to prohibit the sale of menthol cigarettes and products would be discriminatory and counter to the goal and function of the FDA.”

The menthol cigarette smoking contingency of the Democratic base may not be enough to throw the election to Mr. Trump or another GOP contender, but added to a Democratic exodus among young voters and Muslim Americans who are upset at Mr. Biden’s support for Israel, and it becomes clear that Mr. Biden is in trouble.

A Black Lives Matter board member, Shalomyah Bowers, tells the Sun Mr. Biden needs to act on student loan forgiveness and combating police brutality “or he will continue to see a decline in support from Black voters.”

A Black Lives Matter Rhode Island leader, Mark Fisher, recently endorsed Mr. Trump, saying the Democrats “don’t value” Black voters. BLM condemned Mr. Fisher for his statements. “There’s a sense that Democrats are taking Blacks for granted,” Mr. Sheinkopf says. “When you’re in the kind of position he’s in you need absolutely no controversy.”