According to recent Gallup polling, smoking rates are highest in the South and Midwest, typically states that "have fewer legal smoking restrictions." Smoking rates top out at 29% in Kentucky, followed by six states where 26% of residents smoke. Utah has the lowest percentage of smokers, checking in at only 11%, with California (15%) and Hawaii (16%) closing out the bottom three. 21% of all Americans say they smoke, unchanged from 2008. The number of states with under 20% of residents smoking has increased, from 10 in 2008 to 18 today.

Excluding West Virginia, all states where over 25% of residents smoke are located in the South and Midwest. On the other end, 14 of the 18 states with under 20% of their residents smoking are located in the East or West. Smoking regulations appear to correlate with a state's percentage of smokers. Gallup writes: "There are no bans on smoking in bars in all but one of the states where rates are 25% or higher and no bans on smoking in restaurants in all but two. However, smoking is banned from workplaces, restaurants, and bars in all but 3 of the 18 states where smoking rates are lower than 20%."
Gallup writes of the current nationwide smoking rate of 21%: "Although this is much lower than the historic highs of around 40% Gallup found from the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s, there remains significant variation across states, with smoking levels in many states still at 25% or higher."