Donald Trump's unlikely weed wager

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

58% : 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.
56% : 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.
49% : But Trump likely has more to gain by being the first GOP presidential candidate to support this issue, which has broad popularity.
45% : 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.
43% : 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.
36% : "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.
33% : "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.
31% : 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.
18% : 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.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.