Utah is an important state in this election. Even though it only has six of the 538 electoral college votes available throughout the country (to win, a candidate must secure 270 of those votes), Utah could offer an interesting insight into America’s changing political geography.
Historically, Utah has been one of the safest Republican states in the country. In 2012, the Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney – who like 55% of the state is Mormon, and who ran the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002 – won Utah by a landslide, 48 percentage points ahead of Barack Obama. In 2008, the Republican John McCain easily defeated Obama in Utah by 28 percentage points. In 2016, though, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton appear to be neck and neck, according to a poll published yesterday by the survey research firm Y2 Analytics.
After speaking to 500 likely voters in Utah on 10-11 October, the company found that Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and the independent candidate Evan McMullin – who is a Mormon and is from Utah – were tied for first place in Utah.
The timing of the poll is significant – the polling company attributes Trump’s meagre 26% of the vote (Clinton also has 26% and McMullin 22%) to the release last week of a video where the Republican nominee is heard bragging about groping women. When the company asked Utah voters about the video, 64% said they had seen the video, while another 30% had heard about it.
But this effect might not be as severe throughout the country. About 1.6% of the US population is Mormon, according to the Pew Research Center, but in Utah, that figure jumps to 55%. And, according to Tuesday’s political survey, many of those Mormons are feeling thoroughly unimpressed by Donald Trump right now – 56% said that Republican leaders should no longer support him as the Republican nominee for president.
-
You can get in touch with any questions you’d like to see answered in this series by emailing mona.chalabi@theguardian.com
