As we all have heard Jason Chaffetz has given an un-endorsement endorsement of Trump. The comment section appears to show that his constituents are less than impressed. Meanwhile Lou Dobbs dropped a meme maker in a tweet:
Or Provo.
Of course some notable GOP leaders from Utah are Mormon but it’s almost always other people mentioning their religion not them unless in the broader world it becomes an obstacle. It would be quite out of character for eg. Romney to mention McMullin’s religion if he endorsed him, or give any appearance that’s the reason. So that reticence might itself cut against public endorsements, as opposed to voting for somebody.
The interesting thing about the GOP split is how very few, so far, actual Trumpists there are running for office besides Trump, though it could change next time. Not just that it’s hard to be as much of an ass as Trump personally, but even his ideas such as they are. He’ll say ‘we need to have a wall (and Mexico will pay), protectionism, not reform Social Security, fund Planned Parenthood, have a new federal entitlement for childcare and drain the swamp in Washington’, and even most of his relatively enthusiastic elected GOP supporters will say ‘yeah, we need to have border security and drain the swamp in Washington’.
But there are ‘anti-establishment’ GOP insurgents in primaries, and they will gain fuel off blame of the ‘the establishment’ for Clinton winning assuming so. McMullin votes help Clinton win. They aren’t that likely to be the tipping point (Trump probably won’t lose UT if he can win all the swing states he needs, it might actually be more plausible Trump loses by just missing in razor close outcomes in NV or CO where McMullin gets more than an * of votes). But that’s the direction they go in.
I can see one way McMullin will get more votes: Clinton being seen as a landslide winner. That is, winner in the electoral vote not counting Utah or other small states. If she’s seen as already having the election won, then the hold-their-nose-and-vote-Trump crowd will not feel the urgency to vote for him and will look for a protest candidate to vote for. And McMullin, despite having fairly standard Republican positions on almost everything, is a protest candidate this year.
Fivethirtyeight hasn’t added him to their results in Idaho yet, but I’ve seen reports of two recent polls from that state that have McMullin at about 10%, which is better than Johnson is doing. Trump is at about 50% in Idaho, so McMullin has a long way to go, but thanks to the above effect, things could change fast.
Just FYI, McMullin is not on the ballot in Nevada at all.
Is McMullin still pulling any numbers in the polls in Utah anymore? Not a conventional third-partier, I know, but I understand third party usually numbers shrink as the election draws near.
Yes. The polls that include Nov dates have McMullin in the mid 20s but Trump still with a decent lead.
Yeah, I went and looked later (should have before I asked, I was just on SDMB when I thought about it). Not surprising, of course, since it’s been the expected outcome all along.
While I certainly would have preferred the vote be split enough for Clinton to take it, it might have been nice to see a non-segregation-based, non-main-two-party candidate take a state for the first time in ages. As long as it didn’t keep Clinton under 270, but the Utah being the tie-breaker was always an almost-impossible occurrence for 2016.
My Mormon family members on Facebook have been up in arms the past few days about this alt-right douchebag saying there might be a Mormon genocide or “Mormocaust” if Evan McMullin doesn’t quit tricking Mormons into secretly supporting Hillary, so maybe McMullin’s numbers will go up.
AOL News on GOP dissension in Utah: http://www.aol.com/article/news/2016/11/07/why-a-deep-red-state-is-turning-against-the-gop/21600745/
I’m visiting my Mormon mother here in the States. She moved to Georgia a few years back but if from Utah. She’s never voted for anyone but Republicans in her entire life. She said yesterday that she was afraid for America no matter who wins today. She also said that people in her congregation
were not happy with Trump. It goes without saying that they all hate Hillary, of course.
I would love to see polling of active Mormons. I do think that more of them will hold their nose and vote Trump, but let’s see by tonight.
I’m an active Mormon here in Utah. In talking with my friends and family, I’ve seen both the nose-holder Trump voters, and the McMullin voters. I even know a couple voting for HRC, but they’re long-time Democrats.
And it looks like that streak is continuing. Held her nose and voted Trump because she thinks Clinton would be worse. We didn’t discuss further than that because it would get too heated.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case in Utah. It may have been different if Romney and a few others had supported McMillian, but without endorsements then the average LDS member is likely to default back to Trump.
I think it’s a safe bet that Trump will win Utah, and get a lot of Mormon votes in doing so. A more interesting question is whether McMullin or Clinton will finish in second place.