♪♪♪ announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is made possible in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Endowment Fund.

Jason Perry: Tonight on "The Hinckley Report," candidates spar as a contentious debate season comes to a close.

New polling asked Utahns how much faith they place in the upcoming election.

And voters begin making consequential choices as mail-in ballots arrive in Utah homes.

♪♪♪ CC BY ABERDEEN CAPTIONING 1-800-688-6621 WWW.ABERCAP.COM Jason Perry: Good evening and welcome to "The Hinckley Report."

I'm Jason Perry, Director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics.

Covering the week we have Jeff Merchant, former chair of the Utah Democratic Party; Lindsay Aerts, reporter and anchor with KSL News Radio; and Chris Bleak, partner with RRJ Consulting.

So glad to have you with us this evening.

So much in politics, we're weeks away from the midterm elections, and we may, we'll talk about this, be through the debate season, the debate part of the campaign process.

Chris, I want to start with you for a moment, because this is a pretty serious debate we just had on Monday this last week.

Senator Mike Lee, challenger Evan McMullin.

Key takeaways from that debate.

Chris Bleak: Well, it's one of the more unique debates in that we have only, if you will, one major political party there represented in Mike Lee of the Republicans, and Evan McMullin, an independent party, which I thought was an interesting dynamic.

No other third party candidates on the stage.

What stood out to me was that the dichotomy, if you will, that Evans trying to balance here.

Am I a Democrat?

Am I a Republican?

Am I something in between?

And seemed to kind of go back and forth, and Mike, I thought, that's where he was most effective hammering Evan at that point on, what are you?

What are you going to be in the Senate?

How can this actually be effective?

Jason Perry: Jeff, let's just talk about this.

You were chairing the very convention where the Democrats decided to put Evan McMullin forward as their--as their choice, who they were going to be supporting.

Talk about that dynamic and how it's played out through this campaign, particularly through what looked like the direct attack that Mike Lee was giving him at the debate.

Jeff Merchant: Sure, I mean, I think that this was a very difficult decision for Democrats to make.

We had what, in my mind, was a great Democratic candidate, but at the end of the day I think that for a lot of Democrats in Utah, this election is more about preserving our democratic institutions than it is about, you know, political ideology, and I think that a lot of Democrats in the state of Utah are willing to have somebody who is, frankly, far more conservative than a lot of us would like being our representative in the US Senate than someone like Mike Lee, who, you know, as Evan put it, is a bootlicker to Donald Trump.

So, Lindsay, talk about how this might play out too as people are looking at this debate, because the candidates are trying to tie themselves to the kind of the two anchors of the parties, Evan McMullin, Mike Lee to Donald Trump, and Mike Lee putting Evan McMullin to President Biden.

Lindsay Aerts: Yeah, well, first of all, I would say that if you wanted some entertainment value, this debate got it for you.

In fact, I put on Twitter after the debate, I couldn't decide what was more dramatic, the debate or "Real Housewives of Salt Lake City," because it really was.

You saw in the very first question Evan McMullin go for the jugular.

He didn't even answer the question, right?

He just went for the jugular of Mike Lee.

But I do think it is interesting that I think you heard what you wanted to hear at this debate.

If you are a Democrat or an Independent, you probably really championed Evan McMullin going after Michael Lee, especially on the January 6 issue.

He really, again, went for the jugular on that issue, but also you saw Mike Lee really try to paint Evan McMullin as a Democrat, and I wonder if that was the strategy for both of them, right?

That's where they got their prep, right?

As they're getting prepped by their campaign staffs and their people was paint him as a Democrat and make sure you nail him on January 6, because those are the two main things that voters may still be undecided about.

Chris Bleak: I think it's interesting, Jeff's point there, preserving democracy.

If that is your issue, and understandable if that is, you know, the way they approached that issue I thought was fascinating.

Certainly, I think most that are concerned about that are going to be voting for Evan McMullin, because they see him as somebody that has stood out on that issue, particularly as it relates to Donald Trump.

Mike took a different approach and tried to say, look, I voted to certify the election.

I looked at the issues, I came at it, and ultimately made the decision to certify the election.

I think that's an interesting-- but that was the focal point of the debate because a lot of the other parts of the debate were, we generally agree on this.

You know, maybe Evan would go after him or Mike would go after him, but they generally agreed except to that point in in terms of how they view themselves.

Lindsay Aerts: I think that's where voters saw that, saw Evan McMullin try to say, wait, I also hold Republican values, right?

Evan McMullin saying, I support states rights, and Washington is spending too much, right?

So, those are some of the areas where he agreed with Mike Lee.

And so, you can kind of see Evan McMullin trying to walk that line of, yeah, I'm Democrat in, you know, maybe some moderate ways, but also I support some Republican ideals as well.

Jeff Merchant: I think this raises an interesting question though, which is how--what is the value of these debates?

I mean, a lot of--I mean, I think this was a very valuable discussion, and I think that this is fundamentally where these two candidates differentiate each other, but, you know, a lot of the other questions that we had were not particularly well answered.

I mean, you know, in my opinion, stop people from crossing the border is not a policy, right?

And I think that a lot of the substance that I was hoping to get out of this debate didn't really come.

The candidates were very high level until we got to the January 6 stuff, which I think was good, but this debate was not just about January 6, and we lost out as listeners on a lot of where these folks might come down on actual issues.

Lindsay Aerts: And I agree with that, and I probably am part of the problem, because I loved it, right?

It was great TV, it was great entertainment, it was great radio, but maybe it didn't get down to the deep issues.

Jason Perry: So, Chris, let's get to this a little bit, because we've done some polling through the Hinckley Institute, Deseret News, and it's about a 4 or 5 point race right now with Mike Lee in our last poll.

But what was Interesting is this group of moderate Republicans, was about, you know, 12% of the Utahns said they didn't know yet who they're going to vote for, and about a quarter of those were these moderates.

Did this debate do anything for either of these parties in your mind to try to win over hearts and minds of that particular demographic?

Chris Bleak: No, probably not.

And I'll go back.

I think Jeff raises a really interesting point here.

What--what are we--what are the--what is the debate supposed to focus?

Because you even saw in the dynamic within the auditorium, clearly, the Senator Lee campaign had done a much better job of bringing their people in, right?

And so there was some dynamics there where applauding and other things where they're trying to control that.

So, what is the debate supposed to accomplish?

Are we getting into the nitty gritty of policy, or do we stay kind of at this, you know, this level where they're just sort of strafing each other from a high level and never really getting into policy proposal discussions.

And I'm a nerd, I love the policy proposal discussion, but I haven't seen a debate like that maybe ever in my lifetime, and certainly not when you have both candidates on stage.

Lindsay Aerts: And to your question, Jason, I would say this 12% of undecideds, right?

There are still a large group who--of maybe liberals who can't in good conscience get behind McMullin because he's not liberal enough for them, right?

And perhaps there's some more moderates who are turned off by Mike Lee's text messages, right, and that's where they can't.

So, they're really undecided on where do I put my vote?

Because I don't really love either of these choices.

Jason Perry: So, I-- go ahead, Jeff.

Jeff Merchant: Yeah, I just going to say, I think that that 12% is really the most fascinating part of this.

We don't see those kind of numbers getting to this point in an election season, and they really will make the difference.

I mean, I think it's really interesting that Lindsay says, you know, there are these liberals who, you know, just can't get--quite get behind Evan McMullin, yet if they did, they very well could actually influence an election.

That may be the only election in the next ten years at the federal level that they can influence, right?

I mean, we don't have--we're not going to have competitive races like this in the next ten years in my opinion.

It's going to be very difficult for Democrats with the way that the gerrymandering went to have a House race.

So, this is going to be an interesting one, and I think that those undecideds, which is just a huge number, is going to make a big difference, especially as it seems to be tightening.

Jason Perry: It does seem to be.

Just one more thing on this.

As you think about the sort of liberals, you know, all along the whole spectrum of Democrats, how do you hear from them they're going to do on turnout?

Are they--there's one thing to be supportive or moderately supportive, what are you hearing about that?

Jeff Merchant: Yeah, you know, I think that's a--that's a vital question, because what we saw in 2020 was that Democrats are very good at voting top of the ticket, and then they just slowly peter out as you go down.

And you saw that particularly in Salt Lake County affect a lot of Salt Lake County races where Republicans won, where if Democrats had stayed and voted their entire ballot, it would have been different.

I think that without somebody at the top, it very well could influence races, particularly in Salt Lake County where, you know, there are a lot more Democrats and we are very competitive in county races, and some--and some, you know, House and Senate races as well.

But I think that that's really where, you know, if liberals decide not to come out and vote or submit a ballot at all, it's going to hurt Democrats down ballot.

Jason Perry: I sort of alluded to this, we may not be totally done with debates.

Lindsay, you followed the story so closely on Congressional District 4, a debate was scheduled, Burgess Owens, our representative, declined to participate because of the moderator, the Executive Editor of the Tribune, and a cartoon that they had had run which was what he said why he didn't want to participate.

Talk about that, because you followed the story closely, and you followed him too.

Lindsay Aerts: Yeah, I literally followed him.

I got a tip that Burgess Owens was in the state, and he was in South Jordan, and so I followed that tip, and and literally showed up.

I was invited, I should say, by the city of South Jordan to come and cover what they were doing there.

And then also the congressman was there, and I felt it appropriate that he needed to answer a burning question for a lot of his constituents of whether or not he was going to show up to that debate.

So, after he toured the water purification facility and, you know, I didn't interrupt any of that official business, waited until after that event was over, but was able to ask him, "Are you going to debate tonight?

Are you gonna show up?"

And his quote to me was, "I guess we'll find out," or "I guess we'll see."

But an hour later he came out with his prepared statement that said, "This is the reason I'm not debating tonight."

And so, it's curious to me that, do I think he knew at the time, perhaps, that he wasn't going to debate?

Probably, he dodged my question very skillfully, as often politicians can do.

But he was clearly in the state at that moment, at least that day, at least that morning, so I think it is a fair question for him to answer of why he didn't show up that day.

Jason Perry: I want to get to what might happen, but, Chris, talk for just a moment whether or not that's a fatal, you know, decision on his part to decide not to do this.

Chris Bleak: It's not gonna matter.

And I can understand--one of the challenges is this goes back to this discussion about debates.

I love to see debates matter or a way to engage the candidates in a forum that--where they can talk about things, the issues that matter, and get off of their talking points.

It would be ideal to see that.

Maybe that's a little utopian idealistic, and it's not going to happen.

It's not going to impact Burgess here.

And I think what you're seeing is a lot of, sort of, discussion both in the D.C. chattering class as well as in other areas in media.

Do these things matter?

How can we reformulate or relook at these things in a way that will actually have an impact or we can engage these candidates?

Because most campaigns are encouraging their candidates, if they're up big, don't go, because all that's gonna happen is you're going to make a mistake, say something stupid, get in a situation where it's harmful to your campaign.

There's very little upside.

Lindsay Aerts: But I think it's clear to point out too, and important to point out that the reason it's not gonna matter for Burgess Owens is because of the district that he's in and the way that it's shaped, right?

Because it's been redistricted recently, it's even more Republican than it used to be.

We used to see a more competitive race in CD-4, now it leans much more Republican.

And so, that's the reason it does not matter for him, and, like Chris was saying, I do agree that for the candidate, it's everything to lose and not much to gain.

Jeff Merchant: I think ultimately the point then becomes, you know, where does the accountability lie, right?

I do think that voters-- I'm with Chris, I'm a little Pollyanna-ish on what debates should be like.

Whether they're ever actually going to be like that or not is another question.

But as voters I think that we are entitled to have our leaders hold themselves accountable and allow us to hold them accountable as well.

If that can't happen through something like the district you're in, the least that he could have done was participate in a neutral forum and debate, not just one, but two other people that at least from the Utah debate commission's perspective were polling high enough to be able to, you know, question him on what he's done over the last two years.

Jason Perry: And, of course, you do sit on the Utah debate commission.

Is there a possibility we may still see a debate?

Jeff Merchant: Not from the commission as far as I know.

I know that the campaigns have been talking about it, at least the Republican and Democratic candidates have been talking about it.

Whether other people have been invited, I don't know, and, frankly, I don't see at this point why Darlene McDonald would participate in a debate with Burgess Owens.

It doesn't seem like, you know, by the time they'd be able to hold one, jeez, tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people have already voted.

I mean, I got my ballot yesterday, so.

Jason Perry: Right, I wanna transition for just a moment too, because our ballots are in the mail, but so much other stuff is in the mail too.

Wow, our commercials, it's hard to avoid the Senate race for sure in terms of the commercials coming back and forth.

But, Chris, I want to ask you about sort of the negative aspects of these--of campaigning itself.

Sometimes it's the candidates, often it's these outside groups, but I want to--I want to talk about this poll that we did, because we asked Utahns what they think about negative campaigns, and this feels like this has been fairly negative during this last season here.

But we asked, how do negative campaign tactics influence how you participate in elections?

Sixty-six percent of Utahns said has no impacts, negative campaigning has no impact on their decision on who to vote for.

Chris Bleak: They're lying to the pollster, there's no question about it.

You know, I think clearly we-- there is an impact that that's having, and we talk about this in other ways, whether it's how are the news media, Fox News, MSNBC, approach things, whether it's campaigns, we look at it on social media, we talk about the negative influences of the messages that come through.

And so, I think we--we all believe in social media having an impact on our children, right?

We've talked about it, we look at that, and then we say, oh, but it's not having an impact on me.

It's just hogwash.

And I just think that it is having an impact.

Utahns like to believe that negative campaigning doesn't work on them.

I think our negative campaigning does look a little bit different, there is a difference flavor to it than what we see in other parts of the nation, but it has an impact, and if it didn't, campaigns and other outside groups wouldn't be spending money on it.

Jeff Merchant: Would never do it.

If it didn't work, people would not do it.

Yeah, I mean, that's it.

I mean, the fact of the matter is that, you know, whether you like negative campaigning or not, that advertising happens.

Now, for somebody like me, I feel like I can kind of see through some of that.

I find it entertaining to see bad pictures of a politician flying up over and over again behind other laughing, maniacally evil politicians that they're like, I guess.

Lindsay Aerts: The big voice guy saying, whoa.

Jeff Merchant: Right, you know, the death and destruction that will come from this candidate.

That's interesting to me.

It doesn't--I don't--I would like to say it does not influence me, I think at the end of the day it influences all of us.

There's something in the back of our head or something.

I don't know the psychology of it, but it does, I think that it does work and it does influence us for better or for worse.

Lindsay Aerts: Well, what it does is sow some doubt, right?

It just puts that little seed in of, is this true?

Should I question this?

Did Evan McMullin not pay back his campaign debts?

Did Mike Lee do this on January 6, right?

It just shows that kind of doubt in a voter's mind.

So, from a campaign perspective that's why they do it.

I see those negative ads too, and I like to think that I can see through them, but I think to the average voter doesn't know if that campaign is coming from the candidate or coming from a PAC, and even if you tell them where it's coming from, they don't know who Club for Action is, and nor should they, really, those are kind of the dark side of politics, right?

So, they don't know who those Political Action Committees are, but they just see a negative ad, for example, from Mike Lee and-- or against Mike Lee, and they think, oh, Evan McMullin is running a dirty campaign, or likewise they think the other thing about the other candidate.

Chris Bleak: We're seeing this even more.

Lindsay makes a great point.

I saw one the other day was Citizens for Sanity.

I looked it up, because I wanted to see who was behind that.

You know, people are coming up with sort of these idealistic sort of groups that, oh, this is all we're for, and then hitting somebody really hard, but it's the reason public education generally is so important.

We have to teach our children, we have to teach all of us to think critically so that we can see through those messages and understand, okay, if I want to understand the hit on McMullin or Lee or this person or that person, I can at least go study and understand where that this hit is coming from to get to gain a little bit more perspective on it.

Jason Perry: Chris, you've run campaigns, you've been involved with the process for so long.

One of the ways that you try to rehabilitate yourself or you try to counter these negative commercials is by high profile endorsements, people who can speak and vouch for you that may get rid of some of that noise.

Talk about whether or not in your experience that does help, and for both these candidates in the Senate race, what are they-- what kind of endorsements are they looking for?

Chris Bleak: I love endorsements in really local races, because I think they can have an impact there when you're running a city council race or state legislative race.

People, you know, my--one of my favorite things is get people that are important in the community.

It might, you know, in Lehi and Sandy, wherever, that can speak to these folks.

They say, oh, I know John Johnson here.

I know this person.

I love those.

I think as you get higher up the food chain, it doesn't have much of an impact.

You know, there's been a debate here in the Lee campaign about, you know, Romney not, but he shows, oh, I've got the other 48 or 49 Republicans Senators.

Really?

Like, you know, I don't think those kinds of endorsements do much, but I love it on kind of the local stage where people in your community are speaking to you about a candidate that you may not know as much about.

Jeff Merchant: I may disagree with Chris just a little bit on this, and the only reason why is, you know, with these races that are so close, I mean, if some of the polling is accurate, I mean, you mentioned a 5 point lead for Lee and some of the things that I've seen have tightened that even more.

If this race really is a 50/50 race, maybe the debate does make an impact for some people, enough people.

Maybe a few endorsements does make an impact enough for a few people.

I agree that generally speaking, I mean, these endorsements at these higher levels don't make a huge difference.

Though, I do find it interesting that in Evan McMullin's case, he's getting people from both sides.

Now, on the Republican side he's getting individuals who are clearly not in the Donald Trump camp, right?

And he's getting a lot of interesting people on the Democratic side too that I think you would be rather surprised to hear that he's getting.

That might make a difference in an independent running, but for the most part I think that Chris is spot on here.

I mean, endorsements don't make a gigantic difference the higher up you go.

Lindsay Aerts: I would say the right endorsement works for a candidate, even at the higher level, but all the other endorsements are kind of, like, meh.

For example, I think the Evan McMullin endorsement with Adam Kinzinger, who was in the state just last night, he's a Republican on the January 6 committee, one of two, he's seen as very moderate and one who pushes back on that faction of the Republican Party that maybe is more far right.

And so, I feel like for Evan McMullin that was a good get.

But Senator Lee getting, for example, Vice President Pence, that's like a no-duh, right?

They're both conservatives, and they're both on that side of the political ideology spectrum.

Jason Perry: Okay, so you mentioned you got your poll-- your ballot this week to vote?

People are getting them all across the state.

I want to talk about where Utahns are on the integrity of the elections.

This keeps coming up in campaigns all over the United States, people still bring this up, but Utahns, as it turns out, pretty confident in the election process in Utah.

And, Chris, I want to ask you about a couple of these numbers really quickly.

We asked Utahns how they planned to vote, it's interesting, 68% of Utahns said they plan to vote by mail, 68%.

And this is across all the political spectrum, which was interesting.

And the level of confidence they had was 89% in the quality of our elections.

Chris Bleak: Well, I will say my ballot is already mailed and sent, and so, I love it.

I find it very easy to use, it feels secure, it, you know, you know where it's going, you can track it.

When you say 69% say they're going to vote by mail, I'm wondering--I'm trying to figure out where these 31% are actually going to go to vote.

I'm not entirely sure where they'd even go anymore because we've become so accustomed to voting by mail.

But it gives you a chance to receive your ballot, go through it, take a look at it, study some issues, take some time with it, because there are races on there, there are issues sometimes that you show--you show up, and when you show up the day of, you're like, ah, I had no idea this constitutional amendment was on here.

And so, it does at least give you the chance to be a little bit more thorough and a little bit--study a little bit more on the ballot.

Lindsay Aerts: I've done a lot of reporting on local elections here in Utah, and I think it's great to see those numbers, that 89% of people think elections are safe and secure and that the local governments are going to run a fair election.

But you still hear kind of those loud minority voices who are sowing doubt in some of the systems, and that's why we felt it really important to go out and pull back the curtain on the system, right?

I just ran a report yesterday about Utah's voter rolls and Utah's statewide database, how we keep that secure online, and how we keep the voter rolls up to date, because as our state elections described to me, that is the currency by which people vote, right?

It's the currency by which our daily lives are affected.

And so, as I've hopefully peeled back some of the layers on how this process works, I hope it sowed a little more confidence in the systems, the safeguards, not only in that statewide voter database, but in the ballots themselves that have security measures on them.

If the statewide voter database does send out extra ballots or, you know, somebody who died gets a ballot, for example.

Jeff Merchant: I think it's interesting though, because we have a number of candidates for county clerk positions, this is the position that manages our elections on a county level, that are--they're election deniers, I mean, they deny what happened in 2020, they're running.

I mean, Salt Lake County is a good example of that.

Now, the Republican candidate in that case has taken a few steps back.

You can decide, I guess, for yourself whether you believe him or not, because he started taking those steps back as soon as he became the nominee.

But I think that's a very, very important thing, especially in a county like Salt Lake where you have well over a million people, and we're seeing that in a couple of other counties too.

So, I think that it'll be interesting to see if that ends up having--if we end up having a rollback of, you know, mail-in balloting and all of that kind of thing if these candidates win, despite how popular it is.

Lindsay Aerts: And those national races, I'm sorry to keep hammering this, but those national races get a lot of attention, but those local county clerk races are where the rubber meets the road for voters, and specifically how elections are run, you need to make sure that the person who's in charge of those keys aligns with, you know, how you want the keys handled, right?

And so, it's so important that the people who get access to those keys are the people who are going to continue to sow trust in the system.

Jason Perry: Hey, Chris, and I want you to talk for a minute too after your comment about where people can go to find out about all these candidates, and also these amendments that might be on--that are on the ballot this time.

Chris Bleak: Yeah, I was gonna say if 89% believe the elections are secure, there's a reason he's backtracking, right?

Candidates--county clerk candidates better realize that people find this secure, safe, and easy to access, and that's an important thing.

You know, there are a lot of great resources, the lieutenant governor's office has a number of resources online that you can use, because there are, for example constitutional amendment you mentioned.

In my area there was a local school bond.

I'm sure there are other bonds in other areas, both on school districts and cities.

And so, those are things that people should take the time to research.

There's a website that you can search for the judiciary on scores on how they've rated in the way that that system is set up.

And so, a number of good resources.

Obviously, you can go to the candidates' websites.

But I think it's worth spending some time looking at that as you have your ballot, you can go through and see, you know, if there's a write-in candidate, we've got a big write-in race in one of the state legislative races.

What's going on there?

Jason Perry: Thank you for that, and it's always interesting when you go in the ballot box and you say, well, I didn't know this was going to be on there.

We should know.

Thank you so much for your great insights this evening, and thank you for watching "The Hinckley Report."

This show is also available as a podcast on PBSUtah.org/HinckleyReport or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for being with us.

We'll see you next week.

♪♪♪