We are now firmly in bizarro world. According to what is tantamount to the official news source of the LDS church, the Deseret News, its latest poll shows Clinton and Trump tied in Utah.
Deseret News: “Poll: Trump falls into tie with Clinton among Utah voters.”
Clinton and Trump are presently at a dead heat with each predicted as capturing 26% of the vote, and McMullin coming up on the inside at 16%.
Utah. The second reddest state in the US, challenged only by Wyoming.
I’ve been watching Utah with growing fascination this year. And on August 12th I felt strongly enough to publish a diary declaiming: “Could UT Become a Swing State? WaPo, Deseret News, and Hillary's Op-Ed Mormon Outreach.”
Semi-delusional, no? Amusing, yes?
...and now this is hot off the press in Utah this morning:
Deseret News
SALT LAKE CITY — Republican Donald Trump appears to have, in his earlier words, "a tremendous problem in Utah" as a new poll shows him slipping into a dead heat with Democrat Hillary Clinton since crude comments he made about women surfaced last weekend.
And along with the billionaire businessman's sudden fall, independent candidate and BYU graduate Evan McMullin surged into a statistical tie with the two major party presidential nominees, according to survey conducted Monday and Tuesday by Salt Lake City-based Y2 Analytics.
I also promised to eat my hat on election night if Utah didn’t go swing state considering the unusual outlier situation this election cycle represents for this unique populace.
For now, my hat is staying firmly on its rack.
This is no election as usual as we’ve all noticed. Even the elders of the LDS church have taken heed. And Mitt Romney was let off the leash early in the nomination process with a green-light by his counsel of elders to go after Trump personally.
In a speech Romney gave at the University of Utah in March he said:
“...if we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished.”
And...morality matters in very particular ways to True Blue MormonsTM.
“Also, a majority of voters statewide and specifically Mormons, as well as a near majority of Republicans, say Trump should drop out of the race, according to the poll.
“The poll shows that 94 percent of Utahns have watched or heard about the video in which Trump had an extremely lewd conversation about women caught on a hot microphone in 2005. Y2 Analytics managing partner Scott Riding called that high percentage ‘astounding’ for political news.”
“Astounding,” indeed.
If the official mouthpieces of the LDS church are any guide (and they do guide their voting bloc with a firm, gentle non-Gentile hand) we have a very unique situation in the Beehive State.
Don’t get me wrong: Utah’s faithful are by no means turning their state blue. Nor are they any more likely to vote for the Democratic party nominee in future elections. And one has to consider the conservative leanings of the considerable non-Mormon population in Utah.
But...just talking this general election:
The poll shows Clinton and Trump tied at 26 percent, McMullin with 22 percent and Libertarian Gary Johnson getting 14 percent if the election were held today. Y2 Analytics surveyed 500 likely Utah voters over landlines and cellphones Oct. 10-11 The poll has a plus or minus 4.4 percent margin of error.
These are today’s polling numbers by the Deseret News:
And the comments section for this article is enlightening, too.
To quote the Deseret News, there is a surprise in the making in Utah:
"A third-party candidate could win Utah as Utahns settle on one," said Quin Monson, Y2 Analytics founding partner.
McMullin may well have caught lightning in a bottle.
If these numbers hold, even Hillary is close enough in Utah to strike like lightning.