Say What? Hillary Clinton Gets the Vape Vote

You heard it here first (second, maybe) folks. One in three vapers is voting for Hillary Clinton. The statistics break down as follows:

• Vapers Voting for Clinton – 31%

• Vapers Voting for Donald Trump – 23%

• Vapers Voting for Bernie Sanders – 22%

• Ted Cruz – 6%

• John Kasich – 5%

I’m no math genius, but that apparently leaves 13% to woo over to one camp or another. Trump or Sanders could take the vape lead with a 13% bump. The survey was done in late March by a company called V2, and sampled 600 people.

Analysis

I spent at least 20 minutes researching this to find out more about who was sampled to determine the demographics of the sample, but was unable to find anything. Obviously the sample group did not read my impassioned attempt to persuade folks that Sanders is the right candidate for vapers, and while it isn’t clear if Norquist is going to ultimately endorse Trump or help block him, I am confident that he is not advising vapers to vote for Hillary Clinton. Katy Perry has endorsed Clinton; maybe she is lobbying her vaping friends.

What I found most interesting was that 53% are voting for a Democrat, and only 34% for one of the Republican candidates. Even with no division of the remaining 13% of undecided voters, vapers are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. Again, I have no idea what the parameters of this study were and how random the sampling was, but it is interesting, especially because outside of myself, it seems like almost every vocal advocate for vaping is a Libertarian or Republican (not that there’s anything wrong with that (in my best George Costanza voice)). Maybe I just haven’t found where the liberal vaping community hangs out….

Takeaways

I think I may have mentioned this before, but as I suspected, there is just no such thing as a vaping vote. It is foolhardy to think that vaping will be the type of issue in this election that could make or break a candidate, as suggested by Grover Norquist. Anyone paying attention to this particularly divisive election and divided electorate would have to agree.

Hear me out. Imagine for one minute in the general election, if you are a diehard Ted Cruz supporter that in the pre-general election debate, his opponent, Bernie Sanders, comes out in favor of sweeping rights and protections for vapers. Are you now going to vote for the “avowed socialist” in the election solely because his position on vaping aligns with yours?

Now imagine Donald Trump v. Hillary Clinton. Do you really believe that a Hillary Clinton Supporter is going to vote for Donald Trump because he comes out with the greatest vaping policy you have ever seen!?  I’m thinking not so much.

At the end of the day, vaping is just not going to be the decisive issue in any national-level election. State and local level politics is where vaping advocacy needs to focus for the time being; it just is not going to be possible to have any say in presidential politics at this time.  A grass-roots campaign devoted to outreach and education of local and state public health officials is the soundest path forward to achieve fair and logical vaping rules, while trying to get one of the two major parties (or a third party) to side with the evidence and therefore the vaping community. Until we have them, Keep Calm and Vape On.

Julie Selesnick 

Spinfuel Columnist Julie Selesnick is the president of The Happy Vapor Company. As an attorney-turned-writer Julie brings to the vape community a sharp mind, a strong sense of justice, and the willingness to fight for the rights of those that have chosen vaping to escape the deadly affects of tobacco products.