Donald Trump’s unlikely weed wager

Donald Trump may be a teetotaler, but he’s hoping another intoxicating product will give his campaign an important boost in a tight election.

After years of skirting around the issue, the former president recently announced his support for a bevy of pro-cannabis policies on social media, including recreational marijuana legalization in his home state of Florida.

Marijuana legalization enjoys broad popularity across partisan lines, and more than two dozen states and territories allow it for recreational use. But support for the policy is particularly potent among some core Democratic constituencies that Trump is desperate to slice into: Black men and voters under 35. A Pew Research survey from 2022 found some 61 percent of Black men support legalization.

The issue is hardly top of mind for voters, but Trump’s cannabis conversion has the potential to make his candidacy more palatable to pockets of Americans that could prove crucial. It fits into a set of Trump’s evolving niche, populist policy views — embracing cryptocurrency and eliminating taxes on tips — that could hoist him at the margins.

“Are you looking at 10 percent of the population or vote? No, I don’t think so,” said former GOP Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, who championed cannabis policy during his time on Capitol Hill and spoke regularly with Trump about the issue, in an interview. “But are you looking at a marginal factor that could make a difference in a close state? Yeah, I think you could argue that there is enough.”

Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said Trump’s new pot position could spark interest from a cross section of voters, some of whom have grown disengaged with politics.

“Cannabis is obviously very, very popular with young people. He has some strength with younger white, alienated men, who are very pro-cannabis,” Lake said, pointing to survey data her firm released last year showing two-thirds of voters 18 to 25 back loosening federal cannabis restrictions.

“It’s a question of breaking into [Vice President Kamala Harris’] lead among young voters, but also an attempt to [further court] young Black men.”

Last week, Trump announced he backs President Joe Biden’s efforts to loosen federal marijuana restrictions and will vote for a ballot initiative that would legalize cannabis use for adults in the Sunshine State. He also laid out his support for federal legislation to give states more control over legalizing weed and expand access to banking services for cannabis companies.

While Trump flirted with pro-cannabis positions — like backing states rights legislation and working with criminal justice reform activists like Weldon Angelos — in the past, it was the first time he embraced specific policies to liberalize marijuana laws.

“For any candidate that wants to be the responsible common sense candidate that can appeal to people across the divide, this is an easy issue to pick up,” said Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), a two-term Republican who has campaigned on a pro-legalization platform in her conservative district.

His administration, however, had a very mixed record on cannabis policy.

Some of Trump’s appointees — most notably Attorneys General Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr — took a much more combative approach. Sessions repealed the Cole Memo, Obama-era guidance that shielded the state-legal cannabis industry from Justice Department interference, and Barr became the subject of a whistleblower complaint over his role investigating cannabis businesses.

That track record could deter voters who support Trump’s positions but are unsure about his follow through.

“They’re scared of what Trump appointees could potentially do,” said Angelos, who was issued a pardon by Trump in 2020 for a cannabis-related conviction.

But Gardner believes weed supporters have nothing to fear.

“I doubt if he was thinking of [cannabis] when he was selecting attorney generals. I do think he will now,” said Gardner.

The Harris campaign suggested Trump’s weed awakening is nothing more than a political ploy.

“Donald Trump does not actually believe in marijuana reform, but the American people are smart enough to see through his campaign lies.” campaign spokesperson Joseph Costello said in a statement to POLITICO.

Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), a national co-chair of the Harris-Walz campaign, dismissed the idea that Trump’s policy position would attract Black voters to support him.

“Look at his record,” said Horsford, who is chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. He added that Trump’s administration didn’t do anything to reclassify marijuana, which currently holds the same spot as heroin in the federal Controlled Substances Act.

Harris’ own record on marijuana reform — like Trump and many other politicians — has shifted over the years. As San Francisco district attorney, she co-authored the argument against a poorly written 2010 legalization ballot measure in California’s voters pamphlet and oversaw more than 1,900 marijuana convictions, a higher rate than her predecessor, which sparked criticism from drug legalization advocates. However, that number paints a somewhat misleading picture of her tenure, according to reporting by the San Jose Mercury News: Only a small percentage of those people ever ended up in prison. Once in the Senate, Harris threw her weight behind a bill to federally decriminalize marijuana. She then took the reins on discussions around clemency during her time in the Biden administration.

The Biden administration has stopped short of federal legalization, and many cannabis advocates have criticized the administration for not going further.

“It puts Democrats in an awkward position because what Biden has done is totally insufficient, and I feel like they don’t want to get called out on that,” said Maritza Perez Medina, the director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for decriminalizing all drugs.

As Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has not included any statements about cannabis in the policies outlined on her campaign website.

Trump’s public embrace of federal legislation and state legalization means there’s little daylight between the Biden-Harris administration’s accomplishments and Trump’s platform on cannabis policy. But Trump likely has more to gain by being the first GOP presidential candidate to support this issue, which has broad popularity.

His backers point out that Trump signed the First Step Act, a bipartisan bill that lowered sentences for certain drug crimes, into law and dedicated resources to reduce recidivism and directed the Bureau of Prisons to update its policies on compassionate release. His campaign has tried to contrast that with Harris’ sentencing record as a prosecutor in California.

“Unlike Kamala Harris, who also sentenced thousands of Black men for non-violent marijuana use, President Trump agrees that Americans should not be permanently imprisoned for using a substance that is now legal in multiple states,” Janiyah Thomas, the Trump campaign’s Black media director said in a statement to POLITICO.

But whatever the Trump campaign’s official positions on the issue of marijuana legalization, the former president has never personally mentioned the issue while on the campaign trail.