I saw that, and I was hoping Trump would go off on one of his rants by "explaining " that the problems are because Mormons aren’t real Christians. But he managed to avoid that pratfall.
And tend to live in places that are “dry” in more ways than one.
The question is, how long can he avoid it? He has months of constant speeches to get through.
Utah would be nice, but Texas would be nicer. Hillary is closing in on Trump in Texas.
Cite? Last poll I saw had Trump up by 8 points.
PPP has Trump +6 taken 8/12-8/14
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/tx/texas_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-6104.html
Six points. But note:
Sure, it’s a stretch. But how many gaffes before that 6 points disappears?
Trump’s missteps have
*put even reliably Republican states into question. Trump acknowledged last week that his campaign is “having a tremendous problem in Utah,” where Mitt Romney won more than 70% of the vote in 2012.
“I don’t know a Trump supporter in Utah. And I know a lot of Republicans and I know a lot of conservatives,” said Robert Alan Goldberg, professor of history at the University of Utah and author of “Barry Goldwater.”
He said the Beehive State’s conservative tilt means it will likely back Trump in the fall – however reluctantly. But the notion that it’s even in play points to Trump’s electoral weakness, Goldberg said.*
From here, about halfway down: http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/16/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-landslide-loss/index.html
Time to bump this.
Okay it’s just one poll but … well well well.
Not only may be in play but could be in play for McMullin to get on board with! We could realistically see some more Trump support bleeding to him and some Johnson support switching over there as well.
If this poll is accurate (admittedly a big if) it’s 12% undecided and more choosing third parties than one of the two majors. Now that’s uncertainty!
I don’t know about that, 3 months later to the day of the above statement here in mid-October.
Do you read your own cites or just the headlines when you grab this off google?
The headline looks interesting, Utah’s largest newspaper endorses Clinton, but the second sentence tells everything you need to know about this click-bait.
I’m not going to eat crow over one poll. Frankly, even though he’s a native son I find it very hard to believe McMullen is polling that high and doubt it’ll stay there for election day even if true. I’ll be happy to be wrong though.
As I posted:
I think that Utah could very well go for someone other than Trump this year. McMullin or Clinton could take it. I’m not there now so I don’t get a good feel for what is happening, but there is nothing but the sound of crickets on the Facebook posts of my ultra-conservative, Clinton-hating Mormon relatives. Very different from previous elections.
About 5% of Arizona residents are Mormon, with the same activity rate, so 2.5% to 3% of the voters could be active Mormons. If they believe the LDS church has said to not vote for Trump, that could turn it a little blue.
More about my previous post:
The “Trib,” Utah’s largest newspaper was founded as an anti-Mormon outlet more than a century ago. Back when I was growing up in Salt Lake (pre-Atari, post dinosaurs), the majority of the Mormons took the LDS-owned Deseret News and the Non-Mormons as well as some apostates(!) who wanted some real reporting.
That the Trib supports a Democrat is not news. It was recently purchased by Paul Huntsman the brother of Jon, the former presidential candidate.
Oh as stated it is just one poll. But I do not think that the point is that McMullen is polling that high so much as the desire to not vote Trump among Utahns who would otherwise be reliably GOP presidential voters is that high. Johnson is less appealing to them as a vote for “other” than is McMullen, for many reasons.
My guess is that come election day they just stay home.
Turnout in Utah is already notoriously low. In 2006, 2008, and 2010 they already ranked 45th, 47th, and 47th, in terms of turnout % of eligible voters and in 2012 had their lowest turnout ever.
Interestingly if you go deeper into the actual poll results and limit to answers to which candidate they are definitely voting for, the results were:
Clinton 21
Trump 18
McMullen 10
Johnson 5
The rest of the support was “could change mind” or “if had to choose”. Interpret how you will. I interpret it as lotso uncertainty.
Oh, according to that poll 51% think that Trump should drop out including 46% of Republicans.
Active Mormon agreeing with all of this. I mean, I’m in California, and I don’t know what’s going on in Utah either, but we had a lot of activity and active campaigning for Mitt Romney in 2012 in our ward, and this year, I’m mostly hearing undertones of people being very frustrated with Trump.
538 is now showing that the probability of Trump winning Utah has dropped precipitously from 98% to 68% in the now-cast.
He’s still the likely winner but there’s a month of new sleaze scandals to go.
Trump is still at 84% polls only. A new Monmouth poll is out with McLovin at 20% so I guess this jump is real, which I will eat crow over, since I didn’t think he’d be a blip even in Utah.
We’ll see if he suffers the same drastic under-performing most third parties face once the levers are actually pulled.
It’s in play enough that Clinton opened a campaign office in Salt Lake City. Sure, she’s probably got some extra cash to play with at this point, but they think there’s at least a chance.
Opening a campaign office is good politics even if you know you can’t win. It’s a way of showing the entire country (including the swing states) that you support all Americans, and it can lay the groundwork for a swing some time in the future.
Here’s CNN on the anguish of Utah Republicans in the last month of the campaign: http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/14/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-utah-mormons-morality-dilemma-2016/index.html