UT - Hinckley Institute/Salt Lake Tribune: Clinton +1 [Poll actually from June]

[Zioneer]

Dear mormen and morwomen,

I, Lief, known for my outrageous but fully justified anti-morman views, am willing to bury the hatchet and accept your sick cult with open arms, if you do the right thing this November and deliver the great state of Utah to your BEAUTIFUL NOMINEE, Hillary Clinton. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Lief

There's way too many people who think like that in Utah already, which is partially why Utah is so Republican. But I appreciate the thought. We're trying our best to deliver our votes to a non-Trump candidate. It might help if Romney endorses Johnson or Hillary herself.

If they use the same type of family narrative as he brought to the convention floor, adding a note on how they've kept their marriage vows through worst of times, he could actually be a hit.

Good point...

The key to a Democrat winning Utah this election cycle is in expanding beyond the traditional Democratic coalition of non-Mormons in the SLC area and carving away enough Mormon voters to eke out a narrow plurality.

Would Harry Reid help out here as well as part of a joint campaign event, or is he deeply disliked among Mormon Republicans and Indies?

Harry Reid is absolutely hated here except among the few Mormon Democrats, so he'd be a terrible surrogate.

But yes, the Democrats need to expand into the heavily Mormon suburbs, they might be able to win there, but the rural areas are lost forever.

[Zioneer]

Donald Trump is the worst cultural match of any Republican for Utah by any Republican nominee for President since at least the New Deal Era. Sure, Goldwater lost Utah, but mostly because of his scary stances on nuclear warfare. Being to the Left of George McGovern in foreign policy (Mormons are patriots without being Patriots) will hurt the Republican ticket in November at the very top even if I expect the Republicans to sweep statewide offices. Goldwater did not have investments in casinos, offenses to the sensibilities of devout Mormons not only for gambling itself (Utah has no legal gambling) but also for bawdy shows and rampant boozing and smoking.

(Sure, I am a liberal, but if I had to choose between living in Nevada or Utah, I would pick Utah, as I have "Mormon lungs" and a "Mormon liver" even if I am not a Mormon. I do not smoke and I drink rarely and never much at any time).   

Democrats have successfully co-opted  Mormon (Latter-Day Saints or LDS) respect for intact families and formal education that Eisenhower co-opted in the early 1950s, transforming Utah from a usually-Democratic state to a rock-solid Republican state. Probably because devout Mormons avoid tobacco and alcohol, Utah residents can avoid spending as much money on public health as  other Americans and can keep taxes low and public services at modest cost. Mormons take care of themselves, and non-Mormons assume that habit if they are to find life tolerable in Utah.

Donald Trump can lose this state, especially if the LDS hierarchy turns on him... which has not happened but would be no great surprise if it did. Count on Mitt Romney seconding the endorsement of the non=Republican nominee for which the LDS hierarchy calls upon Mormons to vote.  Mormons believe in the ideal of intact families  even if those families are not Mormons (Mormon missionaries will show up at the front door some time or another); the LDS made a reasonable response to same-sex couples after the Supreme Court ruled against state bans on same-sex marriage. Again, Mormons believe in intact marriages even if such marriages are same-sex.

The incumbent Republican nominee for the US Senate, not at all a liberal,  can win re-election 70-30 while Donald Trump loses, whether to Hillary Clinton or to Gary Johnson. Either way, Donald Trump loses Utah's six electoral votes, six electoral votes that he can hardly afford to lose. Democrats have not had to offend Mormon sensibilities to lose all but one Presidential election since 1948 -- but Republicans have always had a nominee compatible with Mormon values. That does not hold.         

Exactly that, except that the LDS Church will not endorse any candidate for any office. They haven't done that for decades. Other than that, you have it right/

My opinion of Trump rises slightly everytime I see a Utah poll.

Why?

[Zioneer]

I'm kinda with Trey and Matt.  Kooky beliefs, but incredibly nice people.  Good singers, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsINANZ6Riw

I dated a former Mormon briefly (true dis) Had two children, divorced from his wife. From this and from what we talked about, some Mormons can be needlessly callous at times. Nice isn't always the same as kind or sincere.

It's true, there are awful Mormons just the same as anyone else. We tend to have a polite demeanor, but that doesn't change the fact that we're human, and are subject to the same positives and negatives as anyone else.

Not the first time someone in Utah pretended to read and publish something that wasn't actually real.

 

There's no need to be needlessly rude like that.

My opinion of Trump rises slightly everytime I see a Utah poll.

Why?

Let's just say that I don't enjoy being low-energy harassed in the town centre at 2 o'clock in the afternoon on New Year's Eve.

Fair enough. Though we are moving away from the "door-to-door" and public area conversations model, we're moving towards a model of referrals, so blame your friends or friends of friends for that.

As for low-energy... you should have been around at the time of the original Mormon missionaries then. Very fiery.

[Zioneer]

^^^ Weber County (Ogden) is the bellwether of Utah, Democrats have to win that if they want to win the state, they can lose most of everything else by decently large margins as long as they run it up in SLC as well.

So Obama narrowly won Salt Lake County in 2008 (48.2-48.1 Obama) and lost Weber in '08 (62-35 McCain) when Utah went (62-34 McCain).

What kinds of margins would it take in Salt Lake County to actually flip? Weber County sounds like ground zero if you look at the "Mormon Vote" in a state that is 62% LDS....

So of the two-party vote, would Hill-Dawg need to hit 58-60% in Salt Lake County and narrowly win Weber (Ogden) to make the math work?

That's correct, and winning Summit County and San Juan County would also be helpful, as they're relatively Democratic (Summit has Park City liberals and San Juan is where the Utah portion of the Navajo Nation is).

Possibly Grand County as well, I think Obama won that in 2008.