♪♪♪ male announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is made possible in part by Merit Medical and by contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

Jason Perry: Tonight on "The Hinckley Report," our expert panel answers the major questions ahead of Election Day.

What are candidates doing to make the most out of their final hours?

How are campaigns working to push voter turnout?

And what does new polling reveal about what issues are driving voters to the ballot box?

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Jason: 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, editor and reporter with the Deseret News; Holly Richardson, editor of Utah Policy; and Ben Winslow, reporter with Fox 13 News.

So glad to have you all on this really important program.

This is the last one before the election.

We're gonna be so sad when it's all over, right?

Ben Winslow: Who's counting down?

Jason: We are counting down which--and certainly the candidates are counting down too and they're trying to get their voters out.

So, I wanna start with voter turnout.

Ben, let's talk about how we're doing right now.

As of today, the airing of this program, we are at 38% turnout in the state of Utah.

That's 683,000 votes already in.

Talk about that, how it compares.

Ben: Well, it's really good actually for where we are and voters that I've been talking to seem really energized.

There certainly are some who have an attitude of, I'm turning out to vote against a particular candidate.

But what we're--at least what I'm observing is a lot of people are just getting out and voting.

They want to make sure that their registration is up to date.

They're turning in their ballots, they're going and participating in early balloting by--early voting by numbers.

I've been seeing crowds at early voting centers.

People are excited, which is something we haven't seen in a long time.

Maybe it is just a, "I wanna make sure that this particular candidate doesn't win.

I want my vote to go this way," but they're showing up.

Dennis Romboy: I think it shows that people have made up their minds early in this race.

And rather than waiting until the last weekend or the last day, they've made up their minds already.

And I think we know that just based on the past history, especially the voting in our state.

You know, the Republicans have dominated for a long time.

I think people have just made up their mind early and gotten their ballots in.

Jason: And got them in early as, as well.

It's interesting, Holly, you've been such an observer of this political process for a long time.

I always find it interesting to see what parts of the state are coming in early to their great point.

The highest county so far in turnout is Grand County, 60%.

Lowest county so far, I think we're talking about this county a little bit in a few minutes, Utah County at 30%.

Your county.

Holly Richardson: Yeah, that's my county.

So, look, I think rural communities are turning out more early, which is interesting, right?

But to your point, Dennis, that they probably made up their mind already.

But the other thing is how many are voting by mail, right?

So, there's always this churn, not always, but since 2020 there's been this churn about vote by mail, but Utah voters are really choosing voting by mail in high, high numbers.

Dennis: And as for Utah County, I mean, maybe some, the county clerk has something to do with that low mail-in, early voting so far because basically he's kind of discouraged people from mailing their ballots in saying it's safer to actually drop it at the drop box.

Jason: A couple of issues there, let's unpack a little bit too, Ben, because this is the Utah County Clerk, Aaron Davidson.

Little bit of a stir going on this week, particularly with him and one of our members of our legislature.

Maybe talk about what's happening right there because it does get to this idea about voter security.

Ben: Yeah, so, this has been a social media spat that's been going on for a while between Senator Mike McKell and Utah County Clerk, Aaron Davidson about voting by mail, drop boxes, in person.

Obviously, the County Clerk has his view that he believes that that it should be in person voting by dropping boxes and then postal service.

At least that's the way he characterized it when I talked to him.

But he is--has been accused of basically snooping on Senator McKell and Representative Gricius's ballots, about where--whether they used a dropbox or a postal service or how they voted.

Senator McKell went to the Utah County Attorney's office and said that my ballot is marked private.

He shouldn't be doing this.

Is there any kind of crime committed?

The Utah County Attorney's Office is now investigating this.

Meanwhile, Utah County Commissioner, Amelia Powers Gardner has called for him to recuse himself, Aaron Davidson, to recuse himself from overseeing this election, citing a number of issues that she's had with him as well.

And so far, he's told me he is not going to do that.

Dennis: And the Utah County Attorney jumped in as well, right?

With some kind of investigation, whether there's any laws broken by the Clerk in tracking these ballots and, I mean, personally I'm not aware of what law he could be prosecuted under.

Maybe there is something out there.

Jason: So, the idea is for the sake of making sure we're right about this.

So he did--he wasn't talking about the ballot itself, how the person voted.

But Holly, what he's talking about is this Clerk was saying I got a ballot from Holly Richardson.

She did it and she mailed it.

She didn't drop it off.

Holly: That's right.

That's right.

It's the tracking how the ballot was submitted.

But of course, the argument is, it's one small step away from tracking a specific person's ballot to actually what is on the ballot and how that person voted.

So, it feels like a violation, right?

Ben: Davidson has also argued that this is all publicly available information.

This is something you pay a $15 fee.

Campaigns do this all the time when they wanna know, but the argument is, is this, is that extra step of trying to figure out exactly which way you put that ballot in.

Holly: And there's a difference, I think from having a list of available voters and how often they vote and th--even those types of things to saying, I know you specifically mailed your ballot and you didn't put a stamp on it.

That's I think what-- Dennis: The end of the election who voted by drop box, who voted by mail, the ballots in Utah County are not postage paid.

So, technically you're supposed to put a stamp on it.

I wonder if that discourages-- Ben: You don't have to.

Holly: You don't have to.

Dennis: You don't have to, but that's the way the ballot comes.

It says apply stamp here on the ballot.

I wonder if people are confused by that at all, even though you can still put it in the mail.

Jason: So, the Clerk who didn't just stop out there necessarily also has some complaints about the Lieutenant Governor's office who oversees this process, Dennis.

Dennis: Yeah, I mean, the Lieutenant Governor, Deidre Henderson oversees the process.

I think she's said that she had should step aside and not oversee the election.

I don't know all the specifics about that.

Maybe Ben knows that a little bit better than I do.

Ben: The issue has been that he sent--signed on to this letter or he sent this letter following this legislative audit about the signature gathering candidates, suggesting that there may have been some sort of violation of election law.

He told me that he misinterpreted the code.

And so, obviously he's backed off a little of that.

He does think that there needs to be more open, at least what he told me is that there needs to be more open and transparent processes, and he would like to see the legislature address that in the future.

Jason: Even as we're talking about some of these, these kind of, these outliers of sorts.

The reality, Holly, is that Utahns by and large very much trust this process.

In a poll that was just done with the Hinckley Institute of Politics and the Deseret News, we found that 75% of Utahns are quite confident that their votes cast by mail are counted exactly as they intended.

The breakout, sir, for your comment that 72% of Republicans, 92% of Democrats, and 72% of Independents.

Holly: Yeah, and I think that's actually reflected in some national polling too, right?

Is people are actually confident that their votes are going to be counted appropriately until it comes to the national election.

Which is curious because it's counted by the local people, but they trust the outcome of the local election more than they are anticipating trusting the outcome of the national election.

Jason: Dennis, give us an idea about that.

Can I give the number and you tell us why that's the case.

When it comes to that same question on presidential elections, it drops to 59% Republicans, still 94% Democrats, 58% independents.

Dennis: Yeah, I wonder if Utah voters are not thinking about Utah specifically but looking at the nation where there have been problems where, especially Donald Trump has pointed out problems, and called a lot for called on voter fraud and things are going on like that.

I wonder if that's in people's minds and not so much here in Utah where we generally think it's safe and it has been secure.

But I wonder if people are thinking as they're looking out across the country when that--bringing that number down.

Holly: It actually reminds me of the polling data that we see.

People are really unhappy with Congress, for example, right?

Their approval rating, but they like their guy.

It's all the other guys, right?

We trust the process here but not those other guys.

So, you know.

Jason: One more thing on this, Ben, but kind of break down sort of that sort of how that shifts there because we're all submitting sort of the same ballot from the state.

But Utahns say I do trust this but it is--is the concern about what happens everywhere else?

It's the candidates.

But is that the concern that other states might not have the integrity that we do?

Ben: I think that is, Holly's nailed it really.

This is just the view is that I see this also with legislative polling.

"I hate the legislature, but I like my guy," and it just kind of leads to this vicious circle of, you know, you--I don't like those people.

You need to vote those people out, but I'm gonna continue to vote for my person, and then you just keep going repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat.

Dennis: Well, I was gonna say our legislature, we asked the favorability on the legislature here too.

I think it was around 50% which is not great, but Congress is much lower than that.

So, we think our legislature is not bad, but we think Congress is really bad.

Jason: But before I leave this idea about voter integrity and security at the ballot box, there've been some interesting articles lately, one in particular from UVU about the impact of TV ads but not just ads, the deep fakes.

And you know, groups have been shown certain commercials and asked is this real or not real?

The increase is about 552% of these kinds of commercials.

And many people, Holly, can't tell the difference between a real commercial and a deep fake.

Holly: Yeah, I think one of the things that's interesting from that research that they did, they found about 50% could not identify the deep fakes, but it also bleeds over into the real ones.

They are less confident that the real advertisements that they are seeing are actually real, right?

So, that goes down to about 70%.

If you know that deep fakes are possible, it drops your confidence level.

And I think what we're seeing and certainly this happened, we know in previous elections, we've got foreign actors that are coming in, China and Russia specifically, that are really working on trying to sow uncertainty and doubt into the electoral process, to candidates, right?

We know that they're promoting false stories, false narratives.

But now they have access to doing these deep fakes.

It is concerning, very concerning.

Ben: It's only gonna get worse from here really as the years progress, as this technology gets even better.

This sort of what is real and what is not becomes a problem.

We're already seeing this playing out a lot on social media and that it gets amplified onto airwaves and you know, you have the, it sows this mistrust in institutions to where you don't know what end is up.

And it's going to have to be addressed.

There's going to have to be a reckoning at some point if you can have any confidence in institutions or in elections.

Jason: What are you doing inside the Fox 13 newsroom to sort of filter those out?

Ben: Doing our level best to vet and make sure that whatever is put out there is accurate, is real.

Have we seen it with our own eyes?

Is this correct?

Just because something is shared on the internet doesn't make it real.

Jason: Go ahead, Dennis.

Dennis: I was gonna agree with Ben that it gets amplified on social media, especially when a legitimate candidate or source retweets that or puts that out on Instagram or whatever.

Then all of a sudden it becomes more legitimate even though it's a deep fake and people--it just takes off and it's like, you know, like wildfire.

Jason: Well, we're gonna start seeing the impacts of this media and these elections because I wanna get to a couple of the races because I have some polling in the state of Utah and Ben, you've got some fresh polling on top of that.

I want to get to as well.

Let's talk about Utah and president of the United States for a moment.

The question was this, "If the election were held today, who would you vote for?"

Dennis, you were part of this poll.

Let's break it down just a moment.

And Utah was just the outright Donald Trump 61%, Kamala Harris at 30%.

And we did the extra step which I want to get to is we had a bunch of people who don't know.

They say they don't know.

And so, we asked them, if you had to choose, who would that, who would that be?

And Donald Trump went to 63%.

Kamala Harris went to 31%.

Talk about that through the Utah lens because former president Trump's numbers have gone up a bit since he started running.

Dennis: I think from 2016, what was it, 46%?

To 2020, like 58%.

And now he's flirting with 60%.

I think it's interesting.

He's had trouble here, obviously, in the past and I think it's more people are opposed to Joe Biden and to Kamala Harris and Trump has been able to, you know, make a lot of headway in the last four years here in Utah, probably because of that in some part.

Jason: Okay, go ahead and break that down for us a little bit, Ben.

Ben: I think what you're also seeing is just, yeah, people are forced to choose and they're breaking for Trump.

What we've also seen is some other polling that moves him a little down lower.

Still not overwhelming in the noble predictive insights poll had him at 54% and Kamala Harris in the upper twenties.

It still shows that Utah is still not wildly enthusiastic, even as a red state, a reliably red state still not wildly enthusiastic about Trump.

But when forced to choose, they're choosing Trump.

Dennis: Was it McCain had like 62?

Jason: It was a 62%, that's right in 2008.

Dennis: Yeah, and then Mitt Romney of course, was off the charts in 2012 with 70-something percent.

So, it's still reliably red.

I don't know if it matters if it's 51 or 61.

He's still gonna carry the state.

Jason: Well, to put that in context, Holly, in 2016, at that 46% that he won in Utah was still the lowest amount of voting for all the states that end up going red.

What do you make of that here in the state of Utah?

And does that mean even from that time until today, is he going to break 60%?

Holly: Yeah, he might, I mean, we are still a deep red state.

I also think we don't have a viable third party candidate.

I don't think we have another McMullin this time, you know, kind of giving people an alternative.

You don't have to vote Democrat or Republican and there's a path in the middle.

I do think that there are people in the middle who maybe plug their nose and vote for Republican because that's kind of the way they've gone in the past.

But we're still reliably red and I think that will be reflected up and down the ballot in most races in the state.

Jason: Ben, you and I have talked before about how these candidates do their favorables and their unfavorables and how those go up and down.

It's interesting in this poll right here.

Donald Trump was at 56% favorable, 39% unfavorable.

And, but Kamala Harris is where they switched a little bit, 33% favorable, 63% unfavorable.

These are different than the overall voting numbers.

Explain why that might be.

Ben: I think it's just because it's how you feel about this particular candidate.

Are they hitting your vibe?

Are they they somebody you like?

It's the--in other states, we wouldn't do this here.

Maybe we would go get a dirty soda with them or in other states you go, would you go have a beer with them?

And I think that's the view that you're seeing is people are, is this someone that I could pal around with really?

Holly: Yeah, I hate that likability factor.

But again, Utah is reliably red and so I think that's reflected also in favorability because national polls don't show that large divide really between the favorable and unfavorable.

Donald Trump is usually polling more unfavorably nationally than he is here for sure.

Dennis: Even though 39% is pretty high unfavorable really but.

Jason: Well, let's get to one more race.

We got a couple but I want to talk about the governor's race and talk about the national level.

But Dennis, this is a very interesting race in the state of Utah.

In our polling, Spencer Cox 51%.

He broke majority there.

Brian King, 19.

And it was Tommy Williams at four; Robert Latham, three; Tom Tomeny, 2%.

Don't knows were at 22%.

Dennis: That's pretty high this late in the election.

Jason: What do you make of that?

Because these are names we know.

Dennis: Well, Phil Lyman, I think that's what, what do you make of it?

Jason: Yeah, talk about it.

Dennis: Well, Phil obviously is a write-in candidate.

He's been very vocal, social media.

He's been very vocal on about Spencer Cox should not be on the ballot.

He's a illegitimate candidate.

I think that's resonating with a lot of people.

He's--it's kind of a page out of the Donald Trump playbook that he's playing here.

Kind of sowing doubt about the election, the outcome, about the ballots, about the signature gathering process.

I think all those things are kind of working to some degree against Spencer Cox at only 51%.

That's not great heading into election for fairly popular incumbent.

Jason: Ben, talk about this poll that you just done, you've done a story on just today too because it addresses this race.

Our poll did not include Phil Lyman because he's not a candidate.

He's a authorized write-in candidate.

But the poll you're--that you have been reporting on did include him in it.

Ben: Right, the Noble Predictive Insights poll specific asked about Phil Lyman knowing that he was a factor here.

And what was interesting is the breakdown of the numbers.

Governor Cox got 43% of people when pushed who would they vote for?

Brian King, 26%.

Phil Lyman, 15%.

And a previous poll that Noble had conducted earlier in the month had Phil Lyman at 5%.

So, he jumped 10 points.

King went up, Cox went down a little bit.

And so, this is really interesting showing that the governor may win re-election based upon a plurality and not a majority, which is just a very interesting position on this.

And it does show that Lyman has been eating away, carving out these more right-ward, far, right leaning Republicans who just don't like Spencer Cox, who would normally vote for any Republican anyway.

And they have this option and they're choosing to exercise that option.

But obviously at the end of the day, if the governor still has the bigger numbers, he wins the re-election.

The King campaign when I talked to them, they seem optimistic about this, you know, sort of that so you're telling me there's a chance?

And it--as Noble put it to me when I interviewed Mike Noble, the pollster, he said it's plausible, but a lot of things have to fall into place perfectly.

The stars have to align in an act of God kind of way for Brian King to win, but 26% is pretty good, 15% eating in that, that 15% in the middle and 43% for the governor is very, very interesting on that polling.

Jason: Go ahead, Holly.

Holly: Yeah, I--Spencer Cox is gonna win re-election.

It's, you can say it's plausible but not probable, right?

Which is how you explained it.

So, I think, you know, one of the things that I have found the most disturbing is the amount of discontent and doubt that has been sown over the electoral process in Utah.

We know and even your polling showed that people are confident that their votes are going to be counted.

We know that there are election safety measures in place.

We know that the ballots are secure and yet we have somebody who just continues to churn this discontent and these stories about illegitimacy and ballots not being counted appropriately and it's just not right.

And I think it's not the Utah way.

Dennis: And I don't know how much, you know, polling is different than actually voting and you have to write Lyman or Phil Lyman or whatever in there and that's an act, a conscious thing that you have to do.

And I wonder how many voters actually take that step that were polled and say, "Yeah, I'm voting for Lyman," but actually go and write his name.

And I think Spencer Cox will still have more than 50% of the vote in the end.

But certainly not a huge mandate that he might have been expecting.

Jason: Let's talk about the United States Senate race for a minute, Ben.

The numbers right now in this poll, 55% John Curtis, 20% Caroline Gleig, 4% Carlton Bowen, 21% undecided.

That's a pretty big lead for John Curtis.

So, maybe talk about that race a little bit and what he is doing across the country to try to maybe get the Senate, the United States Senate in the hands of the Republicans.

Ben: Well, John Curtis clearly has a very comfortable lead in this race to replace retiring senator Mitt Romney.

And so, now, he's just dedicating his time to helping other Republicans get elected, shoring up the Senate.

Making sure that that is in Republican hands, coming whatever results are following next week's election.

So, he's very comfortable.

It's a pretty chill race, honestly.

Jason: Yeah, break it down a little bit too because a lot of talk from the Republicans are how important every single state is if the Republicans want to take control of the United States Senate.

Holly: Yeah, for sure.

So, you--we know nationally, our Congress is very divided, both House and Senate, but the Senate is super, super close, right?

So, we're trying to get, Republicans are trying to get to a majority, but Democrats are trying to get to a majority and there are definitely states where the presidential election looks like it's going one way, but we might split votes down the ballot.

And so, that's an interesting thing to get out there and say, you know, Arizona, for example, is one of the states where things might split.

Nevada also.

So, to have Curtis, but we also have Burgess Owens and Celeste Malloy who are out campaigning for people in other states as well.

Dennis: In West Virginia, Joel Manchin is not running again.

The Republicans will probably take West Virginia.

Montana is really close Senate race right now.

Also, Ohio, Wisconsin, those could all flip to Republican seats, and the Republican leaders have said if we don't get 52, we're gonna be disappointed in this election.

Jason: Holly mentioned a few of these congressional races, these people are out, kind of break that down a little bit for us, Dennis, because I'm curious whether they have any real competitive district races for us for Congress right now, so much that most people are not even polling these particular districts?

Dennis: We haven't polled.

Yeah, in those districts, the Republicans are clearly gonna win all four of those.

Three of them are incumbents.

You have Mike Kennedy running.

It will be a new congressman.

I mean, I can safely say that he's gonna win that election.

You could call it boring, I guess.

I don't know that there's anyone paying really close attention to those races.

Jason: Anyone else?

Boring is the word?

Is that what you're saying, Ben?

Ben: It's very quiet, these congressional races.

I think what it will be interesting is what happens afterward when we see the legal challenges to the congressional boundaries and how that plays out.

Jason: Let's talk about legal-- the legal challenges for just a moment because we do have an AGs race, Holly, that is going and you know, in terms of all the polling, this one seems to be, you know, we clearly have a front runner right now.

Derek Brown at 40%, Rudy Bautista at 20%, Austin Hepworth at 5%, Michelle Quist at 4%, Andrew McCullough, 3, this is interesting, 28% don't know.

This is an open race right now.

Talk about how this one is shaking down.

Holly: Well, same, I mean, I love the job Michelle has been doing.

She has really campaigned hard for somebody who's on a third party ticket.

I think she's campaigned in ways that are smart and savvy.

But I also think that this is Derek Brown's to lose.

He's a Republican.

He's out ahead on by quite a bit and we'll see a change in the AGs office this year.

Dennis: Forty-percent is not a big number either really.

And I don't know if that reflects Republican leadership in the AGs office for the past 12 years where there have been a lot of issues and a lot of problems with--and the Republicans have been the ones in office during all that time.

Jason: In terms of how these candidates are campaigning, Ben, someone who's watched this particular position for a very long time.

Are they campaigning in a different way than candidates have in the past that have won this election?

Ben: It is a little bit different in that we've seen Quist's campaign being very aggressive, very out there trying to, you know, present an alternative voice.

Bautista has been pretty quiet, not a lot going on.

He early on said I refused to take any outside money at all.

So, you're not really campaigning with a lot of funding that gets out there.

You're just kind of relying on the Democrat, the D by your name to get that portion of the electorate.

Brown's been pretty aggressive too out there.

But it is just it's been kind of an unusual race to watch and I will be very curious to see the final numbers, how voters do ultimately break with, especially with that, that large number of undecided when finally in the--confronted with their ballots, having to choose where they go.

Jason: In our last 30 seconds, give us one race, local race to watch in Utah with our Utah State Legislature.

Ben: All of West Valley City.

Jason: I took advantage of that one a little bit.

All of West Valley City.

Holly: John Johnson, Stacey Bernal.

Jason: And okay, very good.

Dennis: I would have, well, Rosemary Lesser probably in northern Utah.

Jason: Ballots probably not shifting aside our legislature but certainly these races are the ones that are most competitive.

Ben: Oh, yeah.

Jason: Excellent.

Jason: Thank you so much for your insights this evening.

We appreciate it.

Can't wait to watch this election this next week.

And thank you for watching "The Hinckley Report."

This show is also available as a podcast on PBSutah.org, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for being with us.

We'll see you next week.

announcer: Funding for "The Hinkley Report" is made possible in part by Merit Medical and by contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

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