15 might be a solid lead if it was 54-39, but 39-24 with well over a third of the electorate either still undecided or pulling the third-party lever, and a solid chunk of the 39% having a negative view of that candidate, cannot by any means be called Safe. "Battleground Utah" is still a thing.
15% is a pretty commanding lead. Not to say that it couldn't get closer, but I think it's over for now. Utah will still be a very fascinating state this November though. It does not reflect well on Trump though. Granted Romney was a perfect fit for Utah, but polling over 30% lower than Romney is a testament to how bad of a candidate Trump is for Utah. The third party share is staggering though. 25% saying that they'll vote for a smattering of candidates. Wow. I doubt that the total on Election Day will be quite that high, but it will still probably be 20% or so. Glad to see Stein at 1%.
Not sure about McMuffin to be honest. I'm rather surprised to see him polling this high. He definitely puts the state out of reach for Johnson. If McMuffin gets any kind of airtime or attention, he could get 10% on Election Day.
"It's over for now" is a tad self-contradictory, no?
Anyway, comparing Trump to Romney here might be a tad unfair, but McCain got 62% here, and Bush '04 got 72%. A Trump result of >30, win or not, would still be a hilarious swing.
Not sure where the post went, but I'll reply anyways.
I mean that barring anything like an October surprise, I think that Utah is pretty safe for Trump. His campaign is still shambling on despite all of his comments. Unless he literally says that Mormons aren't Christians, I don't think that he'll go much lower, certainly not low enough to throw away a 15 point lead.
I would like to see how soft or hard Trump's support is as NOVA Green pointed out. I'll grant that not having that info could make it hard to draw the best conclusions.
At this point it does appear that enough Mormons are putting clothespins on their noses to say they will support an individual that many find extremely offensive and unlikable in the extreme....
This is one state where I don't think that 3rd party support will fade away dramatically come election day, and additionally there is still a significant amount of Millennials (From all religious backgrounds and belief structures) that aren't enthused about Hillary that represent a significant slice of undecided/ 3rd Party candidates.
NOT saying Utah is in play, but Obama did garner 34% in '08 and it is not unreasonable to suspect that Hillary might well be able to match these numbers come November, considering that Trump is the absolutely most unpopular Republican candidate over the past 40 years in the state.
Now, the key question is do we beg PPP for a poll of Idaho, where 25% of the population is Mormon to see if this race is significantly tighter than expected?
Ada County is obviously a key area accounting for 30% of the statewide vote that went (54-42 Romney in '12) and (52-45 McCain in '08) and 15% of the population is LDS.
Boise is also a fast-growing population area with a significant influx of out-of-state migrants working in Tech sector for companies like HP and Micron, as well as other software and hardware companies.
SE-ID is where the overwhelmingly Republican margins come from in the state, that are heavily Mormon counties, where we could suspect a significant defection towards 3rd Party candidates.
Northern Idaho has a strong progressive and natural resource based history, but just like many parts of Southern Oregon has tilted heavily Republican over recent years (Although Dukakis did very well in '88).
So if we are seeing these number of Republican Party defections in Utah, does it mean that Idaho could well swing heavily Democratic this year as well?
