How would Utah (and SE Idaho) vote without Mormonism?

[Fubart Solman]

How would the Jello Belt vote without Mormonism? Assume that the other demographics (i.e. urbanization, race/ethnicity, education, etc.) stay the same, but that the religious affiliations are more in line with the rest of the US.

[Idaho Conservative]

Well in Utah, the non-mormon vote would make it one of the most dem leaning states, easily the bluest in the interior west.  Eastern Idaho would probably be a little less red, but still very red, like western ID and WY.  Now if you account for other demographic shifts in UT without Mormonism, I suspect it would either develop like CO, with a blue urban area and red rural areas, could be anywhere from lean R to likely D.  Or it could end up developing like another Wyoming, if SLC never took off.  It could also end up being basically an extension of rural NV.  The biggest factor would be if it urbanized or not.  Of course rural UT would be very red.  If you took into account the current racial demographics, urbanization, and education levels, I think it would be blue since suburban college whites lean dem now.   But considering the fact SLC might be a lot smaller, I'd say UT would be red state.

[Sol]

This is, of course, unknowable.

That being said, if somehow tomorrow all the Mormons woke up as plausible non-Mormon equivalents, I suspect that Utah would be a fairly Democratic state, with Salt Lake City as a Denver-esque city with a lot of White liberals and Provo as a Boulder-style college town. St. George would probably vote like Bend. Northern Utah and rural Utah would probably remain Republican but I think on balance Utah would be a Dem state since so much of the pop. is in the Wasatch front.

Idaho on the other hand would only probably vote slightly more leftily. Democrats would probably win Pocatello and Rexburg but it would remain a R state.

[Hope For A New Era]

Utah’s extreme urbanization would make it as D as Colorado, if not more so. Idaho would stay solidly R, but might have a small chance at getting a D governor at some point.

Edit: Thought I'd clarify that I'm describing a scenario in which the religion spontaneously vanishes, replaced by the religious distribution of the US general population, but that no other characteristics of Utah change.

[Nyvin]

Pretty much identical to Colorado.

[Flo 2.0]

I mean it depends on if the migration to those states (w/out Mormonism) make them look more like Colorado or more like Wyoming. Does this question assume Mormonism just didn't happen or the people live there now and they just happen to lose their faith?

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Colorado and Utah aren't interchangeable. Colorado is what it is because the state happens to contain a very densely mountainous region attracting a lot of wealthy liberals and young outdoors types - think skiiers and backpackers. Outside of the Wasatch Front there isn't really that much that's comparable in Utah. This means not just the mountainous areas but the character of the urban area that benefits from the growth and development will be different. Geographically, Utah is straight Basin and Range, closer to Nevada than it is to Colorado. The best analog to Utah in the state of Colorado is the Western Slope and Colorado Plateau, which outside of a handful of ski areas like Telluride aren't really that Democratic.

Salt Lake City isn't a carbon copy of Denver - I actually think without Mormon influence it would look like a fusion of Denver and Reno. It's larger than Reno, but presumably in a universe without Mormonism SLC hasn't experienced the same growth.

So I think Utah without Mormonism looks (as you would expect geographically) to be a fusion of Nevada and Colorado, although probably with less Hispanic influence than Nevada has because Utah has no analog for Las Vegas. You have to make some assumptions about what SLC looks like without Mormons to reach any sort of definitive answer on how it would vote. It would be a 2020 battleground but also competitive (probably moreso than either CO or NV) 2008 - 2016.

Eastern Idaho would be identically conservative.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

So I am imagining that all the Latter Day Saints in the USA suddenly become a bunch of people with the same religious diversity and composition as the rest of the USA.

Utah: the non-Mormon current population is actually likely Democratic leaning. The rest would have the same religious and confessional diversity as the USA as a whole, but would be much Whiter (good for R), quite more urban (good for D), more educated (good for D), would have an astoundingly higher rate of religious attendance among those who have a religion (good for R) (and also higher marriage rates and children per woman). This suggests that it would be a barely Democratic-leaning swing state.

Idaho: the non-Mormon current population is strongly Republican and is the great majority. In this scenario SE Idaho would probably become a region that is slightly Republican-leaning and frequently gives a majority of its votes to Democratic gubernatorial candidates, but the rest of Idaho would drown it out and still make the state a safely Republican one.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

This is, of course, unknowable.

That being said, if somehow tomorrow all the Mormons woke up as plausible non-Mormon equivalents, I suspect that Utah would be a fairly Democratic state, with Salt Lake City as a Denver-esque city with a lot of White liberals and Provo as a Boulder-style college town. St. George would probably vote like Bend. Northern Utah and rural Utah would probably remain Republican but I think on balance Utah would be a Dem state since so much of the pop. is in the Wasatch front.

Idaho on the other hand would only probably vote slightly more leftily. Democrats would probably win Pocatello and Rexburg but it would remain a R state.

Nah. The plausible non-Mormon equivalent of BYU would be an evangelical Baptist university, not University of Colorado, in my opinion.

I would add that Salt Lake City is already full of White liberals, the city is 66% non-Hispanic White and gave 66% of the vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

[Sol]

This is, of course, unknowable.

That being said, if somehow tomorrow all the Mormons woke up as plausible non-Mormon equivalents, I suspect that Utah would be a fairly Democratic state, with Salt Lake City as a Denver-esque city with a lot of White liberals and Provo as a Boulder-style college town. St. George would probably vote like Bend. Northern Utah and rural Utah would probably remain Republican but I think on balance Utah would be a Dem state since so much of the pop. is in the Wasatch front.

Idaho on the other hand would only probably vote slightly more leftily. Democrats would probably win Pocatello and Rexburg but it would remain a R state.

Nah. The plausible non-Mormon equivalent of BYU would be an evangelical Baptist university, not University of Colorado, in my opinion.

I would add that Salt Lake City is already full of White liberals, the city is 66% non-Hispanic White and gave 66% of the vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

BYU is a fairly prestigious and competitive institution, unlike most hardcore Evangelical Baptist Universities. Moreover, Provo is very much a college town. I suspect BYU in this parallel universe more closely parallels the many universities which have some religious affiliation but are nevertheless home to pretty liberal student bodies, like Duke or Georgetown.

SLC has a lot of White liberals but the metro area has a lot of Republican suburbs, significantly more than Denver, or really any other interior West city other than Boise.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

This is, of course, unknowable.

That being said, if somehow tomorrow all the Mormons woke up as plausible non-Mormon equivalents, I suspect that Utah would be a fairly Democratic state, with Salt Lake City as a Denver-esque city with a lot of White liberals and Provo as a Boulder-style college town. St. George would probably vote like Bend. Northern Utah and rural Utah would probably remain Republican but I think on balance Utah would be a Dem state since so much of the pop. is in the Wasatch front.

Idaho on the other hand would only probably vote slightly more leftily. Democrats would probably win Pocatello and Rexburg but it would remain a R state.

Nah. The plausible non-Mormon equivalent of BYU would be an evangelical Baptist university, not University of Colorado, in my opinion.

I would add that Salt Lake City is already full of White liberals, the city is 66% non-Hispanic White and gave 66% of the vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

BYU is a fairly prestigious and competitive institution, unlike most hardcore Evangelical Baptist Universities. Moreover, Provo is very much a college town. I suspect BYU in this parallel universe more closely parallels the many universities which have some religious affiliation but are nevertheless home to pretty liberal student bodies, like Duke or Georgetown.

SLC has a lot of White liberals but the metro area has a lot of Republican suburbs, significantly more than Denver, or really any other interior West city other than Boise.

Well, yes, the suburbs are very Mormon and very Republican, but I was pointing out that the city itself has stopped being so long ago.

About BYU I know very little of these nuances about American universities, but my opinion was borne out of the fact that if all Mormons tomorrow woke up as something else, a fair share of them would be very religious evangelicals.* Provo sounded like a good place where to imagine those.

*of course, a fair share would wake up Catholics, others Lutherans, others non-religious etc. etc. etc.

[Greedo punched first]

Grand County would vote Democratic without Mormonism. It already sometimes votes Democratic.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Without Mormonism, western Utah would likely be part of Nevada and eastern Utah would be part of Colorado. Utah literally exists because politicians didn't want Mormons in Congress and so kept where they lived as a territory for as long as possible.  Were it not for anti-Mormonism, Utah would've been granted Statehood sometime in the 1860s.

[Idaho Conservative]

Keep in mind if Mormons hadn't settled UT, it would likely be less urban.  Less people.

[SInNYC]

To all those who point out that non-Mormon UT votes D, this probably doesnt hold if UT isn't Mormon. A lot of non-Mormons in UT are put off by their perception of Mormons as running the government and pretty much everything else in the state. A good chunk of them vote D as a reaction against this Mormonism and nothing else. If Mormons never existed, they could very well be Cliven Bundy types too.

Actually, I dont think Mormons should fundamentally be Rs (though they are), but thats a topic for another discussion.

[OBD]

Well first off, there's a good chance Provo straight-up doesn't exist - the city's 85% Mormon and LDS is a huge part of why it's so settled today. I mean, there's probably still a town there, but it would have like 10-15% of Provo's population. There'd be a similar effect in SLC - SLC would likely be significantly smaller.

Overall, I'd expect the urban parts of Utah to vote more Democratic - Salt Lake City would be pretty solidly blue, and places like Logan/Pocatello/St. George won't be as monolitically Republican. Utah would probably be a 5-EV Tossup-Lean R state that's trending left (thanks to SLC burbs), while SE Idaho would be Generic Western Conservative territory with blue islands in Pocatello and (potentially) Idaho Falls. Tbh, Utah would have a similar dynamic to states like Oregon, where a (Democratic) city vies for political influence with (Republican) rural areas.