♪♪♪ male 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, with the passing of Senator Orrin Hatch, our panel reflects on his influence on the nation and landmark legislation he sponsored.

After raucous state party conventions conclude, winners gear up for the primary election.

And Democrats make an unprecedented move to back independent Senate candidate Evan McMullin.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ 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 Dennis Romboy, reporter and editor with the Deseret News, Michelle Quist, columnist with the Salt Lake Tribune, and Frank Pignanelli, political commentator and lobbyist with Foxley and Pignanelli.

We're so glad to have you with us this evening as we talk about things on the national level, the state level, because a lot happened in the political world this past week.

Dennis, I want to start with you, though, because we will be thinking about Senator Orrin Hatch in the state of Utah this next week.

We now know he'll be lying in state, in the Utah State Capitol building this next week with the funeral on Friday.

Let's talk for just a moment about his legacy in the state of Utah and our country.

Dennis Romboy: He was a staunch conservative obviously, but he was someone who was willing to kinda reach across the aisle and work with Democrats, Ted Kennedy in particular on some significant legislation and American--Americans with Disabilities Act, the Children's Health Insurance program, those kinds of things, but he also served in an era when that was more okay than it is now.

You can be fierce competitors on the court and then go to dinner afterwards.

We don't see that happen anymore.

Republicans, Democrats seem to be more of enemies than they are you know trying to work together on legislation.

Jason Perry: Frank I want to talk about a couple of pieces of legislation, but first maybe a commentary on that from the other side of the aisle as well, this easily one of the hallmarks that people talk about with Senator Hatch is his willingness to partner with both sides of the aisle on key pieces of legislation.

Frank Pignanelli: Yeah, he was a real streetfighter, he'd go in and he would duke it out.

But he really treasured the relationships that he had with Democrats and Republicans and that was his hallmark.

And he was great at it because he never made it personal.

And that's what I really was fond of with -- Hatch about.

It's interesting how many lives he touched as US Senator.

For example, when I was in the legislature, I did the first hate crimes bill, I went to piece of legislation sponsored by Orrin Hatch, his language for that bill.

The CHIP program was based upon something it was here developed in Utah.

He impacted almost 100 million children over the years because of that program.

He really had an impact on the Supreme Court both on the left and on the right because he was--Ginsburg was his idea.

So even though people from left to right are attacking him, even after his death, he--because of his ability to work with both sides of the aisle, he was, it was really impactful, but I'm gonna say this about Orrin Hatch, we all, we all knew Orrin, and he would stand up and talk about the people he knew.

He knew a lot of famous people, interacted with a lot of powerful people, but I watched on -- of Salt Lake City, I watched at the airport, people without any power, without any influence, walk up and talk to him and he gave them unbelievable kindness and respect and that to me is the hallmark of his character.

Michelle Quist: Well, and you know, Senator Hatch was a staunch conservative but he also had an evolution within his career, right, like he started, he ran for senate here in Utah against then Democrat Senator Moss, Frank Moss and he, you know he beat Moss and he came in as a Republican, but he evolved, he passed these you know liberal legislation, Americans with Disabilities Act, CHIP, and then when you know he saw Senator Bennett kind of get, get booted at convention, he moved again to the far right to make sure that he won in 2012, and he did.

He bought 100000 delegates at convention and made sure that he won for his last term, but again he then supported Senator Romney who was much more liberal than he was at the end of his career.

And so, you know, his legacy kind of goes up and down on this, you know, the conservative liberal framework.

Dennis Romboy: He always seemed to say what was on his mind too.

I recall recently, or a few years ago when he talked about the Affordable Care Act, he called it a stupid, dumb A idea and people that supported our stupid dummies, right.

So the next day he kind of tried to walk that back and apologize for my friends across the aisle for saying that, I didn't mean to, you know, that kind of thing so but he said what was on his mind.

Michelle Quist: Well and by the end of his career in Utah there were so many adults who had been interned for him as you know early college students.

You know I served, you know, I was a tax fellow with him when I was in college, and you know then 20 years later I'm you know talking to him as a delegate and he--like, you know, like was said, he just touched so many lives because his career spanned for such a long period of time.

Jason Perry: Before I leave, I wanna ask you more question, Frank, but to your point about the interns I think we even looked at Hinckley Institute of Politics, it was well over 5% of every intern we send out in 42 years or in the office.

Very interesting in that respect, but just one commentary since you brought it up, Frank, significant influence on the United States Supreme Court.

In fact, there was a period of time there were I think every member of the Supreme Court, it was bedded by him to some extent.

Frank Pignanelli: Yeah, you're looking for examples, a lot of people have support or don't like Clarence Thomas but he's the one that worked with Biden to get Clarence Thomas through.

And like I said, he's the one that reached out to the President Clinton, I don't know if we can, you know, get some of your picks too, when we get to do, you know, Ruth Bader Ginsburg again, and we can get Briar in, so he really formulated that.

He took great pride in his impact upon the Supreme Court and what's come out is apparently he was going to be Reagan's pick, but because he had voted for a pay raise for the Supreme Court that same year, he couldn't, he couldn't be picked to be in the Supreme Court, but he really cared about the Judiciary Committee and the Supreme Court, and so we're still living with that influence today, which is remarkable.

Jason Perry: Let's switch gears for just a moment.

Wow, what a big weekend for our conventions in the state of Utah, the Republicans and Democrats both held their conventions and there's just so much to unpack there, let's start with the Republican Convention, Dennis, for a moment, first give, you were covering I know a sense of kind of the feeling there going into it.

Dennis Romboy: Well, I think the tone was set right after the opening prayer, wasn't--amen was said and then let's go Brandon.

And there was a big cheer throughout the whole convention hall.

And it kinda went from there.

We saw, I can--really took a far right tone in most of the things that were presented by some of the candidates, the reactions by the delegates, booing Mitt Romney again, booing Spencer Cox, booing Deidre Henderson, you know, that's kind of the tone of the whole meeting.

Jason Perry: Yeah, so interesting.

Michelle, talk about it for a moment because you had to go through this, this gauntlet before as well.

So it's interesting we're talking about there were some boos from some of our high, you know, high elected officials and even have the party share-- Carson Jorgensen, maybe not completely aligned with some of these people either.

Michelle Quist: Yeah, I don't think anybody expected anything but a far right presence at the convention.

It's hard to have a representative body there when you have caucus meetings that have five people from your neighborhood, right?

So you have five people show up.

They choose themselves to go and be the delegates.

They have a predetermined, you know, agenda that they're trying to formulate within the party and the convention played out just as it, as expected when people know that the candidates will be on the ballot anyway because of signatures.

You know, it's just changed.

The convention, the caucus convention system is not relevant because of this, you know, the path, the signature path, and I think Utahns are glad for that because they see these conventions as not representative of them, and you know they're, the conventions have elect--as in first place, people that come out that aren't then elected in the primaries.

male announcer: Can I follow this thread for a second?

You, Frank, as you observed the Republican side, we'll get to the Democrats in just a moment.

Is there a ramification if someone decides to get the signatures or not?

We talk about it on the show, do delegates hate it?

Do they not?

Or is it, just depends on who the candidate is?

Frank Pignanelli: Well, they all say, the delegates say they hate it, but yet they passed onto a lot of people who did get signatures.

You know, on your program last week, you and your guests all talked about the wonders of the convention and how there's a warm feeling, we get warm feelings at a rock concert too, but they should be deciding who our elected officials are, nor should these conventions--both conventions demonstrably prove they have no business deciding who our elected officials are because they're completely out of sync with reality.

You had a chairman of the GOP who went on a national program attacking his highest profile Republicans and there was no ramifications.

By the way, they didn't even show up to the convention.

Then you had people that go through this whole process, getting delegate support, but yet because they got signatures, It didn't make a difference anyway.

And then you have the Democrats, who didn't even nominate some for the U S. Senate.

So why have conventions?

Let's just, if they want to get together and have a breakfast and mingle and talk and debate, let them do that, but let's just move forward with signature gathering to where they get the primaries out to the people that care really about public policy.

Dennis Romboy: The delegates are always much more conservative than the rank and file Republicans at large, you know, and we've seen, history is born out, the convention candidate usually has not gone on to win the election.

We've seen that with John Curtis a couple of times and, and other candidates.

Mitt Romney too was forced to do a primary.

Gary Herbert was forced into a primary a few years ago, and those candidates who are conservative at--more moderate and that whole huge spectrum, they usually come out the winners in these primaries.

Jason Perry: Let's talk about this just a moment because there was a very high profile one.

Michelle, let's start with you.

Senator Mike Lee when--he got.

He had several challengers and two of them, Ally Isom, Becky Edwards, both got signatures as well, talk about what happened there because Mike Lee, 70% of the delegate votes, Becky Edwards at 12%, Ally Isom at 10%.

Michelle Quist: Right, well I think Becky Edwards showing was surprising, I don't think people expected her to get you know second place, to do as well she did.

But the fact that Senator Lee did so well after this, you know, a week prior of, you know, bad media around these texts that came out that, you know, had him asking what should I say?

And, you know, help, you know, talking about the tryin' to overturn the election.

There's no ramification, right?

The delegates just do not care about that.

They love Trump, they love overturning elections, and they, he, you know he came out with 70%.

Dennis Romboy: The only intrigue was how lightly they were going to cheer him.

You know, they gave him a standing ovation when he took the stand.

Jason Perry: Yeah, he did get a standing ovation.

No ramifications.

Frank, no ramifications -- signatures gathering for him, no ramifications on the text.

In fact maybe the opposite.

Frank Pignanelli: Right, and I think what's happened even though a lot of people are concerned about that, I think that what you're seeing is people are moving on, moving past January 6th.

There was evidence in the convention.

Although that's one of the reasons apparently why the Democrats wanted to take him out, but you don't see the Republicans.

What's happening also is that you had, you're gonna have a three way primary and so those that are opposed to Lee are going to be split between two candidates, which are, I think it also signals that according to your poll, he's massively ahead inside that type of contest, which also signifies a moving on.

Jason Perry: So it's interesting 'cause since you're the one that brought up a just a moment ago too, it's interesting to see what will happen in that race where the signature gathering process is what gave rise to three separate candidates for the primary on the Republican side.

Frank Pignanelli: Yeah, and so you have, you do have Republicans that have some concerns with Lee.

They're dividing their forces between, Ally Isom, you know and Becky Edwards and so Lee's gonna come out of that primary obviously very strong to face Evan McMullin.

Dennis Romboy: That 70% will go down at the primary election, he won't get 70% of the vote, but.

Michelle Quist: Well and I think, I think Ally Isom will withdraw.

At least I think she should.

Jason Perry: We'll talk about that because it didn't seem like it this week, in fact, she was calling on Becky Edwards to step down.

Michelle Quist: Yeah, she did call on Becky Edwards to even though she you know consistently pulls less than Becky.

But her, a recent video said you know no matter what happens and so--whatever happens in this campaign.

So I think she's getting there.

I think that was a last stitch effort.

There's an understanding that you can't go in on a three way race, plus Republicans don't like you know- that they want to know a clear winner, that, you know, this is the, what's still being said about Governor Cox is that, well you know there was no majority there because there were more than two people and so I think that, you know, I think Ally cares about the race, I think she sees you know at least she believes that Senator Lee shouldn't you know shouldn't continue on as Senator, and so I think she'll do what's good for, what's good for that race.

Jason Perry: Okay, we'll watch that one.

Let's talk about some of these congressional races on the Republican side, let's break those down for a minute, Frank.

So our first congressional district Blake Moore gonna be in a primary.

They all are, turns out, going to be in primary.

Andrew Badger, 59%, Blake Moore, 41%.

Frank Pignanelli: Which shows you that that's why you collect signatures because both he and John Curtis on the first round barely got past that 40%, and that's why you're gonna see it'll be political malpractice not for any candidate, not to get signatures 'cause you had at some of these --conventions, legislators who didn't collect signatures, they thought they're gonna be fine, and they got bumped off.

So if you don't collect signatures, you really are risking mortal death.

Jason Perry: Well, so the one that's thinking about that the most of course is Congressman Curtis, right?

Michelle, talk about that for just a minute because it was a calculated risk on his part and it was close on that first round.

Michelle Quist: Well I'm not sure it was calculated, it was, it was definitely a risk, but I'm not sure he really understood the extent that would happen at the caucus meeting and you know the degree to the right that the delegates would be.

But yeah, he did not collect signatures.

He went into convention just expecting, you know, to win and I mean by the time he went into convention, he knew that he was in trouble, right, or that he could be in trouble.

He didn't.

You know, he got enough to get into a primary against Chris Herrod, and he's gonna win again like he's won twice already.

Dennis Romboy: Curtis has gathered signatures in the past, and it's kind of inexplicable why he didn't do it this time.

Frank Pignanelli: The reason why he was elected to congress was because Deidre Henderson didn't collect signatures, but congressional district won with Blake Moore, that's interesting because there was some thought that some of the other to get through, but Badger, he really, really did well to get into it.

Dennis Romboy: And that's a three way race too 'cause you have Tina Cannon--signatures as well.

Michelle Quist: And the district is different.

He has different constituents.

Jason Perry: Has changed.

Frank Pignanelli: Now he's now my congressman, I live in Capitol Hill.

Jason Perry: Has changed substantially, hasn't it?

Dennis, but to your point 'cause I think we should bring this up on that third congressional district.

This is the third time John Curtis will go up against Chris Herrod.

You go back to 2018 as you mentioned, Curtis at the primary won 73% to 27% in 2017, there were three candidates, Curtis 43, Chris Herod 32.

Dennis Romboy: They've actually, this is actually their fourth race.

They ran a house, a Utah house race based on history, I think Curtis was a Democrat at the time as I recall, apparently Curtis is moving into a house near Herrod's neighborhood.

Their kids have gone to prom together.

This has the makings of an interesting race, although Curtis is trounced in the primary every time.

Michelle Quist: His numbers, Herrod's numbers just keep going down like they're not getting better, just getting worse.

Jason Perry: So let's transition to some of these state races.

You brought up, they are some of our house races, anything you saw at either the conventions with our local elected officials, the House and Senate.

Frank Pignanelli: For me, the most compelling one is you have two members of Republican leadership are now going into a primary and that's Evan Vickers, the senate majority leader, and Milner who's the Senate majority whip, that's a big deal.

And what it demonstrates is that even inside those caucuses themselves-- these legislators who really do a great job, they're facing this right wing opposition too.

Of course, you've got primaries for the Democrats, some of the Democratic Senators also, so this kind of grumpiness and a part of kind of the activists of both parties are going after their beloved incumbents.

Michelle Quist: I was really glad to see Senator Dan Thatcher when his--everybody thought he he wouldn't.

He supported the, or he didn't support the trans bill that went through the legislature and everyone thought he'd, he'd be out, he's done.

And he won.

He, I think he won by one vote.

Yeah.

Jason Perry: So what do you make of that?

Because people did think going into it, he was one of two Republicans that voted against the override on the transgender sports bill, and people thought going into that, that might be something that would maybe torpedo his chances, I mean he usually wins by a little more than one vote.

Michelle Quist: And I think it affected, It affected the vote, but it's not the overarching issue of the day.

It can't, you know the transgender rights isn't, it's noise and it's distraction for elections, especially and it's a good talking point, but for somebody like Senator Thatcher with his record, people cared more about all the other things he's accomplished.

Jason Perry: Any other races, local races you all are watching?

What do you make of the fact we have so many of these legislative leaders that are in primaries, I mean these are people that have become household names to some extent, and they've been challenged by names that people don't know so much.

Dennis Romboy: And I don't know the philosophy of their opponents, specifically.

I would assume that they're to the right of, of them and I think that's just this overall feeling now among a lot of Republicans that we don't want moderate candidates.

We want Trump candidates.

And again, I'm not sure where these particular candidates stand, but that's kind of the feeling, the overall feeling.

Frank Pignanelli: You look at like Jerry Stevenson, beloved.

Mayor -- he's facing a primary, he's probably going to do fine, but they're putting these really good strong incumbents into these primaries.

Michelle Quist: It's the convention.

The convention puts them there where Utah's public probably won't, you know, or wouldn't have.

Jason Perry: What do you think about, Michelle, just really quickly before I leave this because we've had some kinda high profile endorsements as of late.

Michelle Quist: Roger Stone.

Jason Perry: Roger Stone was one, even Donald Trump.

Another one.

Michelle Quist: I mean, they speak to that, that wing of the party that was at convention.

I don't think they speak to Utahns in general.

Dennis Romboy: Mike Lee was endorsed by Donald Trump, but he hasn't made any noise about it at all.

He hasn't downplayed it, but he hasn't said anything about it whatsoever.

Frank Pignanelli: And the Roger Stone endorse--he did not get outta convention so there were parts of sanity in these conventions.

Dennis Romboy: Roger Stone endorsed Lee at the convention as well.

Jason Perry: So let's talk about the Democratic Convention for just a moment 'cause what happened there was unprecedented.

Frank, you know we're gonna start with you on this.

Frank Pignanelli: Makes no sense because apparently a strategy as well, we dealt, we can't come up with a candidate to defeat Lisa, we're gonna endorse this independent.

Not once, but I in fact, I can't find a human that can tell me why they, why Democrats will support McMullin, other than they want to get rid of Mike Lee.

So are you telling me that the next time around is a moderate Democrat who may not align with some of the special interest groups, or they gonna give the same pass that they gave to Evan McMullin, because even though McMullin was not nominated, it was clearly 'cause I'm already getting emails and things like that from high profile Democrats fundraising with McMullin.

The other piece about the Democrats and Republicans and even Independents, they day need to worry about.

McMullin has said he's not gonna caucus with the Republicans or the Democrats, which means he is just gonna show up in January and not be part of any of the structure, which means he won't get a committee assignment, or if it is, it's a poor committee assignment.

So it's either being naive or being disingenuous like he's going to plot.

He's trying to weave getting both Democrat Republican support by saying, I'm not gonna caucus with the other, but that's not fair either side, it's not fair to Utah, because we need to know that, that whoever we send back to Utah, excuse me, back to Congress, is gonna be fighting for us, not playing these political games.

Michelle Quist: Utah Democrats can say they didn't nominate anybody, but they, you can parse words all you want, but Evan McMullin went to one convention on Saturday.

It was the Dem convention, and Evan McMullin is the only one who came out of the Democratic Convention on Saturday.

He's their nominee, and you know like Frank says, he doesn't stand for their principles.

I don't know what he stands for other than getting elected to federal office from Utah.

Jason Perry: So Dennis talk about, I want to give the numbers here.

So the vote was it was a emotion that came forward led by Ben McAdams, Jenny Wilson, some Democrats in the state, and it was shall we have no candidate, and the vote was Democrats 57% no candidate, over 43% for at Kael Weston who was the Democrat that wanted to represent them.

So talk about that just for a moment because Kael Weston has had some things to say about it.

Dennis Romboy: And I think that was a surprising number, 57 to 43, that's substantial.

I think Kael Weston his argument all along is we need to have a Democrat in this race to have a marketplace of ideas where we can debate things and have that opportunity and not just cut Democrats out.

He thought that was disrespectful to the party and to the voters, specifically, they don't have that option anymore to choose a Democrat in this race.

Jason Perry: Okay, so Frank answer this because both Michelle and Dennis had an interesting observation about whose candidate is Evan McMullin then as well because in the op ed that Kael Weston wrote, he sorta indicated that he would support Becky Edwards if it was up to him.

He said, I will go along with this, but I don't agree with what happened necessarily.

So for Democrats in the state.

Frank Pignanelli: Yeah, so right he went with one convention, but I think it's hard to claim that he's a Democrat because some of the things he's talked about in the past don't necessarily align with some of the traditional.

Michelle Quist: Yeah, I don't think he's Democrat, I just think he's their nominee.

Frank Pignanelli: Yeah, they are gonna be pushing for it, but see there's, there's significant ramifications from this because when you are at the top of the ticket of a particular party, you have to get out the vote efforts and things like that, you have some national organizations putting money and even they don't think you're gonna win, none of that's going to be happening.

That's what the Democrats have done, is they basically assigned really an execution order on many of their down ballot candidates 'cause they're not gonna have the support so now these congressional candidates, they're gonna be trying to do their best and also their legislative candidates without some of the top of the ticket, that's tryin' to push, get out the vote.

So there were serious ramifications for this.

None of that was considered, is because they so badly want to get rid of Lee that they're willing to to do this.

And again, there was no discussion of how McMullin supports any of their principles or things like that.

You go on the website, well he doesn't say anything so it really is an interesting confession of maybe your ideology is not working and so are willing to play this political game to get, just make some type of advance so they could claim victory.

Dennis Romboy: I'd be curious to know, Frank, where do you think core, hardcore Democrats are going to go in this race.

What are they going to do?

Are they going to even turn out, or what are they gonna do?

Frank Pignanelli: That's, without some of the top of the ticket, they may not turn out unless you've got a legislator that's really pushing hard in a tough race, the may turn out for that, may turn out for congressional.

So what you may see, even though it's about 30% of the vote in a statewide race, those numbers may go down, and that's something that Evan McMullin-- so he may have to go excite the Democratic base, if you go excite looks the Democratic base, that's gonna turn off the Republican base.

So it's gonna be fascinating to watch how this all plays out.

Jason Perry: So Michelle, this is so interesting how we see this going forward.

I had the fortune to speak to this great group of PBS supporters last night, and the conversation was a little bit about what motivates people to show up, as they're showing up for a person, are they showing up as opposed to a person?

Sometimes what's a better motivator?

Am I anti vote, or am I a support vote?

Michelle Quist: The better motivator is always the support vote, you know.

Who is, who do you believe in?

Why, you know, why it's the person is the face of, you know, the principles that they want to actively support.

It's the anti, it's like kinda the negative, you know, the negative campaigns.

Like you see it and sometimes it works, but it doesn't hit you.

It doesn't motivate you to do anything.

They need somebody.

They need a person to say, you know, believe in me.

We can do this together.

And I don't think they have that here.

Frank Pignanelli: There's going to be an anti effort.

You know, you look at the polls and it looks like the Republicans would do well because you have enthusiasm amongst Republicans 'cause they want to vote against Biden, they want to vote against congressional Democrats, so they're gonna be coming out.

There's nothing to push back against that.

Dennis Romboy: That all said, there might be a pass for Evan McMullin from our latest poll, Mike Lee had under 50%, there's a quarter of the voters that hadn't decided yet.

You have 10, 11% for Weston, where are they going to go?

So there is a path, conceivably.

Michelle Quist: If he wins the primary.

I mean, who knows what could come out between now and then?

Dennis Romboy: Right, yeah.

Frank Pignanelli: But I think at some point, Evan's -- find himself.

He can't be just be the non Mike Lee, he's going to have to find who he is and what he believes in.

Jason Perry: Yeah, how do they start defining their territory there because it sounds like that's something Evan McMullin is going to be trying to do.

Dennis Romboy: Well so far, his, he's marked his territory by being anti Mike Lee and really hammering Lee on the text messages and everything else, that so far has been his message.

So I think Frank's right, he is going to have to evolve as a candidate and have a message that he's tryin' to promote.

Michelle Quist: Well and before that it was anti Trump, like he is the anti, you know, I'm anti this person, that's really great, but what do you stand for?

And why should I vote for you?

And he's not gonna be able to describe that because he's, he has no master, he's trying to serve too many.

Jason Perry: Yeah, well, this is gonna be such an interesting race for us to watch.

And there's a lot that's going to happen between now and the primary, and then all the way into November it's gonna be so interesting.

Great insights this evening, thank you so much for spending some time with us.

And thank you for watching The Hinckley Report.

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

And you can now follow the Hinckley Report on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Thank you for being with us.

We'll see you next week.

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