Candidates for state office who support a $1-a-pack increase in thecigarette tax have a big advantage over candidates who oppose such a tax, according to a poll taken for the Maryland Citizens? Health Initiative.
“This is very much a wedge issue” for voters, said Vincent DeMarco, the group?s president. “They?re going to choose candidates who support this.”
The tax would be used to raise money for health care for the uninsured and to discourage smoking by teenagers, who are more price-sensitive than older smokers.
According to the poll of 1,214 likely voters done by OpinionWorks of Annapolis four weeks ago, the tax increase is favored by two-thirds of Marylanders, by large majorities of women and blacks, by more than half of Republicans (59 percent) and even by almost half of people who smoke (45 percent).
The poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percent, even found that voters who typically favored Democrats would be more inclined to support a Republican candidate who supported the tax increase against a Democratic candidate who opposed it. “We?re not going to endorse anyone, but we?re going to let people know where candidates stand,” DeMarco said.
Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan and Baltimore Mayor Martin O?Malley, the Democratic candidates for governor, did not take a firm position on the tax increase, other than supporting health care for the uninsured. But Gov. Robert Ehrlich is definitely opposed to a cigarette tax increase.
Ehrlich spokesman Shareese DeLeaver said, “Number one, it?s a tax,” which the governor generally opposes. Secondly, the tax increase “does little to discourage smoking or the purchase of tobacco products,” and finally, “it will drive people into neighboring states where they can purchase the same products cheaper,” she said.
DeMarco pointed to a number of Republican governors who had supported increasing cigarette taxes, including George Pataki of New York and Indiana?s Mitch Daniels, President Bush?s former budget director.
