Elections in Utah can seem humdrum sometimes, with little suspense about who will win in the heavily Republican state.
But not this year. The race for U.S. Senate in Utah includes a few twists and the contest is generating a lot of attention, even outside the Beehive State.
Mike Lee, the two-term GOP incumbent, and unaffiliated candidate Evan McMullin, a former Republican who ran as an independent in the 2016 presidential election, are facing off in the Nov. 8 general election.
Who is not running is making national news.
“What’s really interesting about this particular Senate race is the fact that we don’t have a Democrat on the ballot,” Leah Murray, a Weber State University political science and philosophy professor, said.
Democrat Kael Weston, a former U.S. State Department official who tried unsuccessfully to unseat Republican Rep. Chris Stewart in 2020, also was running for the Senate spot but lost a bid to be his party’s nominee at its April convention.
In an unconventional effort, some Democrats – including former Congressman Ben McAdams and Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson – convinced a majority of delegates to keep Weston off the ballot and instead unite behind McMullin, who they believe could defeat Lee. McAdams has said independents, Democrats and moderate Republicans need to join together to push back on a “far-right surge” in Utah.
At the GOP convention in April, Lee won his party’s endorsement with approximately 71% of the delegates’ votes, defeating six other candidates, including former state legislator Becky Edwards and community and business leader Ally Isom.
Under Utah’s dual-path nominating system, office seekers can earn a spot on the primary ballot by collecting signatures, and Lee bested Edwards and Isom again in June, this time with 62% of the vote. Edwards got 30% and Isom got 8%.
That leaves Lee and McMullin on the general election ballot, along with Libertarian James Arthur Hansen and Independent American Party of Utah candidate Tommy Williams, who are not expected to be factors in the race.
The Lee and McMullin campaigns did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Who’s ahead? Poll numbers vary
Lee, an attorney who served as general counsel for Gov. Jon Huntsman, has said he voted for McMullin in 2016 in protest of Trump because he didn’t think the former president was a real conservative.
His view has changed since then and Trump has endorsed Lee in his run for a third term. At an Arizona rally for Trump in October 2020, Lee referred to him as Captain Moroni, a hero described in the Book of Mormon.
His remarks sparked pushback by some members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who found them offensive.
In April, text messages between Lee and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about challenging the 2020 presidential election results became public. Lee has said he was investigating rumors about plans by state legislatures to appoint alternate electors and he ultimately did not object to the results when they were certified.
McMullin, a former undercover CIA officer, has called Trump a “true threat” to democracy and left the Republican Party in 2016. He was backed by the nonprofit Better for America in his presidential run and was on the ballot in 11 states.
Nationwide, McMullin received 734,737 votes, or 0.54% of ballots cast for president. He came in third in Utah with 21.5% of the vote, after Trump, who got 45.5%, and Hillary Clinton, who got 27.5%
Recent surveys on the Senate race have produced widely varying results, according to FiveThirtyEight, a website that uses polling and statistical analysis in stories about politics and other topics. Both campaigns have released internal polls recently that show their candidate is ahead.
The McMullin poll, conducted Aug. 29 to Sept. 1 by Impact Research, says McMullin leads Lee by 47% to 46%.
The Lee poll, conducted Aug. 4 to Aug. 5 by WPA Intelligence, says Lee is ahead 50% to 32%.
A Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll put the race at 41% for Lee and 36% for McMullin. The survey was conducted by Dan Jones and Associates on July 13-18.
Lee and McMullin are scheduled to debate at Utah Valley University on Oct. 17. Mail-in ballots are being sent out to voters on Oct. 18, three weeks before the Nov. 8 general election.
“We usually don’t have fun elections,” said Murray, who is academic director of Weber State University’s Walker Institute of Politics and Public Service. “Usually, our elections are non-competitive. They’re not super exciting but this one’s going to be a doozy.”
Winning over voters
The Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll also found 46% of Utahns surveyed approve of how Lee is doing in the Senate, while 47% disapprove and 7% did not have an opinion. The 47% includes more than a third who strongly disapprove of his performance, according to the Deseret News.
Murray said McMullin – who called Lee a “sycophant” for Trump at a Sept. 7 rally in downtown Salt Lake City – is clearly trying to appeal to Republicans who are disgruntled with the former president and the way he does things.
“What he’s trying to signal to voters is, if you vote for Mike Lee, you are basically voting for Trump,” she said. “I think if McMullin were running against Mike Lee in 2020 or 2024, if Trump were actually on the ballot and McMullin could say, ‘Mike Lee is a Trump person,’ then maybe that argument goes a little further.”
Lee has countered that McMullin is basically a Democrat and Biden is the problem.
With McMullin running as an independent, everything is a little more complicated, according to Murray. The issue for voters who would never cast a ballot for a Democrat but think Lee might be too connected to Trump now is whether to vote for an independent “who walks and talks like a Republican,” she said.
Murray expects there will be a lot of attention on the debate, which could be a decisive factor if either candidate says something “really stupid.”
She predicts Lee will retain his seat in the end.
“I think this is the best chance an independent could possibly have and I think McMullen is the best independent to have the chance but I think Mike Lee is going to win,” Murray said. “It is very hard to unseat an incumbent. It is very hard in a midterm election where voter turnout will be down.”
Campaign strategies
Matthew Burbank, a University of Utah political science professor, said the economy and inflation are important issues to voters. Other concerns that might come into play include Lee’s interactions with Trump, he said.
However, much of the campaigning has not been issue-based, and Lee’s statements and his ads are generically anti-Joe Biden and anti-Washington, he said.
“I think for Lee the strategy here is quite straightforward,” Burbank said. “It’s to make this a referendum on Democrats being in power, which I think is what he’s been trying to do with his campaign commercials. As long as the voters go into this, particularly Republican voters, thinking this is really all about Joe Biden and getting Democrats out, they can cast their vote for Mike Lee and feel good about that. Some independents will do the same thing and so I think that pretty much ensures Mike Lee would win.”
For McMullin, who has mostly been introducing himself to voters, the strategy is more complicated, he said.
Democrats are disposed toward him but he needs to get a sizable number of them to turn out to vote. In addition, he cannot appear to be a proxy for Democrats, Burbank said.
“The only way McMullin makes this a competitive race is he also has got to win over independents and even more importantly, he’s got to capture disaffected Republicans,” he said. “He’s got to frame the issue about Lee as Lee really hasn’t accomplished anything.”
Burbank said the October debate is probably McMullin’s best opportunity to tell voters, especially Republicans who might be wavering on whether to support Lee, about what he’s done and what he can bring to the job.
“He’s a bit of an unknown quantity,” Burbank said. “He’s never been elected to a major office. He’s never really run a major campaign except that presidential run and so people just don’t know that much about him.”
Even if McMullin were to get elected, he would face a serious problem based on his promise to remain independent and not caucus with either Democrats or Republicans, he said. He probably would get committee assignments but those would be the ones nobody wants, according to Burbank.
“He can vote,” Burbank said. “He can participate in whatever committees he gets assigned to but as a truly independent member who’s not caucusing with either party in the Senate, he’s not really going to have an impact.”
Looking for an alternative
Former Democrat state legislator Pat Jones, the CEO of the nonpartisan Women’s Leadership Institute in Salt Lake City, said there is a gender gap involving issues, with women more likely to cite education funding, education in general, healthcare, gun policies and the environment as important.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the summer overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that established a constitutional right to abortion also is going to matter, “even in Utah,” she said.
“Some people may not think so, but I think it will because what I’m sensing is that it’s deeper than that,” said Jones, co-founder and former president of the public opinion and market research firm Dan Jones & Associates. “It’s not just the abortion issue. It’s the fact that we have people who are not like us making decisions for us.”
Jones said McMullin’s independent status is appealing to voters. If a poll were taken today, Lee would probably be ahead but the results would be closer among women, she said
“It seems like not just women but I think a lot of people are looking for an alternative right now,” Jones said. “It’s a year where people are sick of the perceptions of both political parties.”
She believes woman could be the deciding factor in the contest for the Senate seat.
“I think women may make the most difference this year so it’s a matter of getting people out to vote and making them feel like their voice really can make a difference,” Jones said. “This could be a year when an independent could win.”
I voted for McMullin in 2016, and I have never voted for Mike Lee. I am what you might consider a “gettable” voter for an independent candidate. But that candidate would have to propose policies acceptable to me. McMullin proposes no policies whatever, nothing beyond vague generalities that describe Mike Lee’s policy votes as well as anyone’s.
McMullin promises to unify is, but much as Pres. Biden was in his Storm Trooper speech last week, McMullin’s rhetoric is hateful and divisive, describing Lee and his supporters as beyond the pale. His negativity matches anything Trump throws up and exceeds anything Lee has said.
McMullin also employs the same range of phony fund-raising appeals that any other candidate does. Apparently this barrage of “sky-is-falling” appeals works, as McMullin has raised a lot of money, but he has done so by employing the divisiveness he claims to deplore.
While he proposes no concrete policies, McMullin has inveighed against the filibuster, voter ID, and in favor of a panoply of procedural reforms that would raise the future electoral prospects of the most radical of Democrats. His understanding of the horizontal and vertical separation of powers that makes the U.S. what it is seems to be non-existent.
I may still not vote for Lee, but I can see no way to vote for McMullin.
McMullin magically gained a family to seep more palatable to the dubious voters of UT. Lee is a great constitutionalist and conservative. It’s a smear campaign from the democrats and McMullin to paint Lee as a far right-winger, when he is the truest and best conservative for the state. Disappointing that the Democrats (including McMullin) would go so low!