There were tobacco taxes similar to Proposition 86 on the ballot in Missouri, Arizona, and South Dakota this year. The latter two measures passed. Missouri’s tobacco tax measure failed.

Although industry analysts warned before the election that tobacco manufacturers faced an uphill struggle to defeat Proposition 86 because of most Californians’ antipathy toward smokers and toward tobacco generally, in the end, only a scattered number of counties voted for the measure.

Secretary of State voting pattern maps show that the heaviest support for the measure was in the Bay Area, with other counties that supported the measure doing so by only small majorities. San Francisco registered the highest support for the measure (67%); Glenn County voted most strongly against the measure (75%).

Overall, though, the margin by which Proposition 86 failed statewide was narrow enough that many political analysts believe that the tobacco tax will be back on a future ballot in one form or another.

Proposition 90 has been going back and forth all evening. As of now, with 38% of all precincts reporting, the noes have the slight edge: 51-49%.

Both of the big-money measures appear on their way down to defeat. Proposition 86 is at 54-46%. Proposition 87 is at 57-43%, which if it holds will be a truly humiliating margin for the measure’s backers.

A new public opinion survey by KTVU-TV and the Field Poll shows continued deteriorating support for three of the major propositions:

• Proposition 85: 46-43% yes

• Proposition 86: 45-45% yes

• Proposition 87: 44-40% no

If Proposition 87 loses in spite of all of the money and political capital that have spent to promote it, including months of TV ads and numerous public appearances by Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and assorted celebrities (everyone from Julia Roberts to Robert Redford to Eva Longoria), it will be one of the big stories of the election year.

California currently taxes cigarettes at 87 cents per pack, which places the state tax at 22nd-highest among the states. The money from the tax currently goes to (1) the general fund, (2) to obligations incurred by Proposition 99 (the Tobacco Tax and Health Promotion Act of 1988), (3) to childhood development programs authorized by Proposition 10 (the California Children and Families First Initiative of 1998), and (4) to a breast cancer research fund established by the Legislature in 1994. The state raises approximately $1.094 billion in revenue from the tobacco tax each year, according to the California Budget Project.

Proposition 86, if it passed, would make California the state with the highest tobacco tax in the nation, at $3.47 per pack. A recent Orange County Register article points out that smokers could drive to Arizona or Nevada to buy cigarettes (where cigarette taxes are $1.18 and 98 cents per pack respectively) if Proposition 86 becomes law. They could also turn to the black market, as happened in New York when the state raised its cigarette tax to $3 per pack.

The California Budget Project confirms that the tax envisioned by Proposition 86 could be regressive, in that it would have the most significant impact on low-income consumers. Low-income consumers would spend 0.9% of their income on the tax if it passed. Taxpayers in the top 1% would spend 0.01% of their income on the tax.

Proponents counter that low-income consumers would benefit from the health programs that the tax would help fund, and they also contend that low-income consumers would be more likely to stop smoking as a result of the higher cost of buying cigarettes.

The California Budget Project has issued a comprehensive report on the potential economic and other impacts of the ballot measure.

The No on 86 folks got a bit of unfortunate publicity recently when it was revealed that the political firm of the president of the California NAACP, Alice Huffman, was paid $100,000 by a campaign account affiliated with Philip Morris, the tobacco company, at the same time that the NAACP was endorsing the No on 86 position. Huffman’s position was that there was no connection between the funding from Philip Morris and the position taken by the NAACP on the ballot measure. To be sure, other African-American political groups (including the California Black Chamber of Commerce and the Black Business Association) have taken a similar position, saying that the tobacco tax envisioned by Proposition 86 supporters is a regressive tax that would have a disproportionate impact on communities of color.

An article appeared about the alleged conflict of interest in the Capitol Weekly on Thursday. That same night, KTVU ran a lengthy report about the matter on its 10:00 pm newscast, complete with an interview with a prominent African-American anti-tobacco activist (Huffman’s only appearance was in some old file footage from last year, with the sound muted).

These days, even an article published on a Sacramento website that’s read mainly by politicians, lobbyists, reporters, and consultants can wind up with a significantly larger audience given the right circumstances.