♪♪♪ male announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is provided in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Foundation Fund, Merit Medical, and by contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

Jason Perry: Tonight on "The Hinckley Report."

Candidates seek a high profile endorsement as they vie to become Utah's next US senator.

As the first candidates submit signatures to guarantee a spot in the primary, others go all in on courting delegates.

And high profile visitors stoke excitement over a hopeful return of the Winter Olympics.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ 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 Salt Lake City Representative Jennifer Dailey-Provost, minority whip in the Utah House; Damon Cann, professor and head of the Political Science Department at Utah State University; and Daniel Woodruff, reporter with KSLTV.

Thank you so much for being with us this evening.

A lot of things happening in the political world, but I wanna start with one in particular.

I wanna start with you, representative.

We lost a great former elected official, a great person, a great friend, Ted Wilson this week.

Talk about Ted for just a moment.

I know you had a relationship, and I know you know him well and his contributions.

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: Oh, it's-- I first wanna send out my condolences to Jenny Wilson and all of Ted's family for their loss this week.

Ted has always been a paragon of integrity and, you know, the very picture of what it means to be a public servant and really serving his community as mayor in the '70s and '80s and beyond.

You know, serving as a director for "The Hinckley Report" and ushering through a whole generation of students and, you know, political activists who really care about the communities that we live and work in.

And he will be greatly missed and leaves behind a wonderful legacy that we can all be proud of and look to.

Jason Perry: That's absolutely true.

Damon, talk about that for just a moment, because it's true, as Representative said, Ted was the director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics for 18 years, the longest serving director, and one of his hallmarks, that he taught the students, he was a professor also, he talked to the students a lot about engagement, regardless of party.

Damon Cann: Yeah, tremendous legacy of teaching that here at the Hinckley Institute and a tremendous legacy of living that through the course of his public service, the way he served as mayor of Salt Lake City.

Of course, tremendous kudos for the work he did managing the great floods back in the early 1980s, and then-- but a pragmatist too, who was willing to work across the aisle, get things done.

Did some service and some work on environmental issues during the Herbert administration here in Utah, and just a person who did wonderful things over a lifetime of service in Utah politics.

Jason Perry: Absolutely right, his legacy will be felt for-- going forward with all the students he's taught and the lessons he taught them as well.

I wanna jump into some political races for a moment, and, Daniel, we'll start with you.

I wanna start talking about endorsements for just a moment, because this is the time of the cycle in the state of Utah when we're trying to gather, you know, people who will vouch for us, who will tell us that we're the right candidate for the job.

And a couple of people have been sought after.

One of those is Senator Mike Lee.

This is been an interesting week for people in the Senate race.

In particular, people who are, are courting him at town halls.

He's been at town halls this week, sort of doing job interviews.

He was at one for car, Carolyn Phippen, Brad Wilson, Trent Staggs, and Jason Walton.

He didn't endorse any of them yet.

Will he?

Daniel Woodruff: That's a good question.

As from the quotes I've seen out there, he's not planning on making an imminent endorsement, but I think you see ahead of the Republican convention some of these candidates really hoping to get his endorsement, because Mike Lee is very popular among the Republican delegates, and I think that endorsement would play very big in the convention setting.

Whether it plays as big in the primary setting is yet to be determined, and we'll see if he makes an endorsement.

But definitely a lot of these candidates want to get his attention and his endorsement, and in some cases they're trying to compare themselves to him, saying, "I would be a Mike Lee-esque person in the Senate, as opposed to a Mitt Romney," which obviously is the person who holds the seat they're trying to occupy.

Jason Perry: David, talk about how this works on the endorsement side, but also people sometimes talk, and I'm curious if it is still the case.

You've got two tracks, you've got the convention track, make sure we appeal to a certain group there, and then you've got the general election track.

Does it change very much?

And how do these endorsements kind of transcend those two parts of the campaign?

Damon Cann: Yeah, well, look, absolutely true.

Mike Lee is a rock star with the delegates, and if he chose to endorse, that would be a game changer for whichever candidate received his endorsement.

I don't think he's going to do it, because for, well, a couple of reasons.

One is that he would-- he wants to keep credibility with all of these candidates in the first place, and in the second place you don't want to endorse someone and then have it not shape up that they actually win the race.

He's got personal relationships with several of them, and I think he's probably gonna step back.

The bigger question is, would it matter in a primary?

And there's some interesting literature on this that suggests yes, endorsements can matter.

They matter more in elections where people have less information.

So, in a general election where there's a lot of campaigning, people know the candidates pretty well after a primary and the general sequence, you don't see endorsements matter that much.

But in a primary context, you do see at least a modest bump up that comes from helping people know what to do in a low information environment where you don't have a party queue to help you sort it out, because everybody has the same party identification.

And so, these endorsements can carry a lot of weight in that context if Mike Lee or others choose to step in and offer such.

Jason Perry: You both have unique perspectives on this, both-- you've held office, you've run for office, you have to do this as well.

Talk about your perception of endorsements, the power of, and whether or not they can motivate.

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: So, I think it really is election specific, party specific, district specific.

And, you know, in this case, I think for the Republican pri-- convention, it makes a big difference.

Because as was mentioned, this is-- Mike Lee is very popular with the Republican delegates.

And for-- especially for candidates who are choosing the convention only path, I think that they feel a lot more strongly about trying to get that endorsement, because it really can make a difference in the delegate race.

Now, I think it's really interesting that in there are many, many instances where the candidates that have come out of convention don't end up winning a primary, particularly if candidates got their name on the ballot via signatures.

And so, you know, I think that continues to show that these convention races don't necessarily always reflect the will of the broader voter base, but for these candidates, especially if they haven't collected signatures or care a lot about getting Mike Lee's endorsement in the Senate race.

Jason Perry: That's true, we have seen people who have come out of convention and end up losing the general election for-- primary, for sure.

Which leads me to a very interesting endorsement this week, whether or not this one matters.

former Congressman Stewart, Daniel, has made a big endorsement this week.

Talk about that.

Daniel Woodruff: He endorsed Representative John Curtis for US Senate to replace Mitt Romney.

I think this is significant.

Keep in mind, Representative Curtis's-- former Representative Curtis's endorsement has made a difference before.

A year ago Celeste Maloy was an unknown.

She is now a member of Congress.

He endorsed her, she was his staffer, and that made a huge difference, and she came out convention winning that, and then ultimately going on to win that special election.

So, I think this could play well, because Chris Stewart is well liked among Republicans, I think both in the delegate base and beyond.

And so, John Curtis, I think, scored a coup with that in getting his endorsement.

Whether it tips the scale in making John Curtis beat everybody else handily or not, I think you can't say yet, but this was a significant endorsement, and his endorsement has had power before.

Jason Perry: And it did, why don't you talk about that for just a moment, Daniel, because Celeste Maloy was a former staffer.

His endorsement had a huge sway with the delegates, which is important, because she didn't get signatures, you know, then or now in her current race right there.

So, is that enough to carry the day when you have a name like that behind you with the delegates?

Damon Cann: Yeah, certainly, you know, I think there's a potential that the endorsement will have ended up mattering more for Celeste Maloy, where her name recognition was relatively low, than it will for John Curtis, where he's a known commodity around the state.

There's already a lot of information, name recognition for John Curtis.

Look, it certainly doesn't hurt to have someone like Chris Stewart endorse you in a Republican primary in Utah, but I don't think that it will have the same sort of game changing effect for him that it did for Representative Maloy.

Jason Perry: This past week we had-- we're talking about the Senate race still just a little bit.

Representative, we had some big debates, these ten candidates, you know, who are in play, and eight of the ten actually participated.

This is an Eagle Forum, and I'm asking you this for a reason here, you know, from your party and your perspective right here is, many in this group running for Senate are kind of trying to cater to the more conservative end of the spectrum.

Is that how it should be played from your side of the aisle?

When you just look at that race objectively, we'll hear some others, but what do you think?

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: Well, I think that given that they've-- the Eagle Forum sponsored this debate prior to the primary really speaks to the fact that they wanted the conversation of this debate to key to primary voters.

If they had scheduled a debate during the general, then the conversation necessarily and appropriately would have maybe been a little bit different, but the Eagle Forum is a conservative group.

They, you know, they make no bones about it, and that's a known entity.

And so, I think that might, you know, speculating, their goal is to really give candidates the opportunity to demonstrate their conservative cred for primary voters, and mission accomplished.

They got what they wanted out of it.

Jason Perry: Damon, put on your political science professor hat here a little bit too, because there is-- there are a lot of candidates and not a lot of room on that spectrum.

Damon Cann: Yeah, so I think if this debate ends up mattering, it ends up mattering as a winnowing device to help maybe delegates decide which way they want to go out of the convention only path candidates.

But in terms of impacts that would reverberate into the primary election itself, I think the effect of this one is going to be pretty negligible.

Jason Perry: Okay, I want to talk about debates generally for a moment.

All right, Daniel, do people care about them?

I want to talk about the local ones, but I want to talk about the presidential race as well, because we've been doing some polling on this.

We're seeing what's happened nationally.

Do people pay attention to debates?

Daniel Woodruff: I hope so, but, you know, I think the reality is, it depends.

I think certain debates certainly make a big impact in different races, and we've seen some debate performances absolutely change a race.

We've seen, in fairness though, other debates that are very boring and very-- nothing's happening, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing you wouldn't expect.

And so, I think it depends.

I think it's hard to put an exact definition on whether people still care.

I think if you're talking about the presidential race, we're supposed to have a debate here in Salt Lake City.

Jason Perry: October 9.

Daniel Woodruff: In October, I think there is a lot of interest in seeing those two candidates debate, given the discussions about their ages, given the discussions about mental fitness and things like that.

I think there is a lot of interest in seeing that.

The question is whether that will even happen.

A lot of reporting still suggests that that's very much an undecided topic right now.

Damon Cann: My favorite example of a presidential debate that really mattered is back in 1984 when Ronald Reagan was debating Walter Mondale.

And it's really interesting that you mentioned the age issue, because that was front and center in that campaign as Ronald Reagan is running as the oldest presidential candidate in history at that point in time.

And in his first debate, Ronald Reagan was sluggish, he was slow, his responses were off kilter.

Walter Mondale pulled off a few zingers, he brought back the "There you go again" line that Reagan had used in 1980 and pulled it back on him, and just it left the country wondering if Ronald Reagan was still fit to be president.

And then in the follow up debate, Ronald Reagan was sharp, he was witty, he had that great line where he said, said, "I won't exploit my opponent's youth and inexperience to-- and make age an issue in the campaign."

And people looked at that and said, "Ronald Reagan's back."

And if you look at what happened in polls after the first debate, Reagan really slips.

After the second debate, he locks up the election and goes on to a landslide victory.

So, there's very clear evidence that voters do respond, at least for a short period of time after a debate, to what happens on that debate stage.

And it would be really interesting, and I think really good for the country, to have a chance to see the presidential candidates on stage several times over the course of the upcoming election.

Jason Perry: We're hoping all of these happen, the debates do occur.

I know former President Trump has talked about he's willing to do, I think his quote recently was, any time, any place, anywhere, and we'll hear from President Biden about what those might look like.

But to these great points, Representative, you talk about whether or not they have impact or not, but how much is sort of the mental acuity, the stamina, the, you know, those things on display now, which may give heightened importance to this particular debate?

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: I think when it comes to these debates, at least if we were to talking about having the debates here in this moment today, and who knows what, you know, what the world will look like in October, but I would say that the debates are going to be key for that issue, and maybe I wouldn't say that issue alone, but most primarily because of that issue, because that is for both candidates.

That is something that has continued to come up for a number of years, and it certainly came up when Trump was president.

And, you know, this-- I think that if nothing else, people will watch the debate to gauge that one thing.

If that-- if it were to happen today, and who knows again how the conversation will, you know, continue to evolve over the next few months up until November, but I think that's the key.

Jason Perry: We'll be ready, and we'll prepare for it no matter what, right?

I wanna get through some races really.

Can we just march through some of these races are coming up, because the-- some of these conventions are starting to happen.

Democrats have had theirs.

we're gonna start seeing this from Republicans.

I wanna go through some of these races really quick.

Daniel, we'll start with you.

The United States Senate race right now.

So far we have three candidates who have qualified for the ballot by signatures.

This is John Curtis, Jason Walton, and Brad Wilson.

We still have a couple of people who have said they're going to get signatures, but not-- have not turned them in yet.

That-- but that deadline is approaching quickly.

Daniel Woodruff: It is, and we've got two weeks from tomorrow to the Republican convention, and that's where you're gonna see some of these candidates convention only really try to get that ticket punched to get to the primary.

And you're gonna see, I think, a lot of-- it'll be a very interesting day.

I think with the speeches, what they say when they have to drop out, who joins with whom.

But if you've got Wilson, Curtis, and Walton on the ballot, you know, potentially that could bring someone totally different from the convention.

You could get a Trent Staggs advancing out, who's a convention only candidate, or a Carolyn Phippen or someone.

But this is critical time for them.

That is their path to get on the ballot.

And at this point, it may just be those three that get signatures.

Jason Perry: So, it may be.

We still have a couple of days, as it turns out, for people to submit their signatures to get them qualified.

But a couple of other candidates, Damon, talk about these.

So, Brian Earl Jenkins, Brent Orrin Hatch, Chandler Tanner, Clark White, all declared that they're going to get signatures but have not submitted them yet.

And we have four who are convention only.

Trent Staggs, Jeremy Friedbaum, Carolyn Phippen, and Josh Randall.

Talk about that calculation right there, because that is an interesting place to be where you are not guaranteed, but you have a lot of people all saying this is my one and only shot.

Damon Cann: Yeah, so gathering 28,000 signatures is a very, very difficult task.

It's an uphill battle.

It only gets harder because once people have handed in those signatures, the voters who have signed someone else's petition and been counted cannot have their signatures counted on a subsequent candidate's petition, so you are gonna end up with here with a significant volume of candidates, perhaps six, seven, maybe even eight, that end up with all of their fates being determined in the hands of the delegates.

The delegates love that, by the way.

But what they're gonna have to do is make the case that they are in the mold of what the delegates are hoping for.

The trick behind doing that is that winning the convention only gets you a spot in the primary election, and then you have to figure-- we know from the past that we've seen a lot of delegate winners, people who come out of convention with the highest percentage, who don't end up winning because you have slippage between what the primary electorate wants and what the delegates want.

And so, an interesting calculation for them to make, and still possible that one of the three that gathered signatures ends up coming out and winning the convention anyways.

because Brad Wilson, I think, has the potential to be really popular with that group, John Curtis cast his fate on the delegates a couple of years ago and said, "Fine, I won't gather signatures.

Delegates, send me back if you want me," and they did.

So, at this point, I think it's anybody's race at the convention.

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: So, the interesting dynamic about signatures, I think, especially in the Republican party, is that there is still a lot of hostility to having that path to the ballot to start with.

And so, there-- my sense is that there are a lot of delegates that will probably feel less positive about candidates who did collect signatures.

And I don't know to what extent that will play into how they choose to vote for their candidates when at convention, but the reality is, given, you know, if you don't reach a certain threshold in first place in the delegate vote, there's, you know, two people could come out of convention.

So, there could be as many as five candidates on-- in the Republican primary now.

And that's if nobody else gets their signatures collected.

But also remember that candidates can turn in their signatures up until two weeks before convention, and if you're talking about 28,000 signatures that the clerks have to certify, that's, yeah, for the Senate race, that's several more days before there's-- they're confirmed to be on the ballot, and so this will be up in the air, the signature path will be up in the air until the last minute at convention, and that could influence how delegates choose to vote.

Yeah, I mean, it could-- it's going to be a very interesting primary.

There will be obviously at least three people on the ballot.

Jason Perry: That's true, we have at least two guaranteed primaries in some of these races, that's one of them.

What's interesting is the governor's race, Daniel.

So, the governor's race, Spencer Cox has qualified.

He's got 28,006 qualified signatures, but essentially Phil Lyman has declared but has not got signatures turned in yet.

Sylvia Miera Fisk and Scott Robbins.

Talk about what's happening with that race right there, because there's one candidate that didn't even start to get the signatures at all, and that's Carson Jorgensen.

Daniel Woodruff: It's an interesting race, because I'm just interested in the fact that you've got an incumbent governor who is, you know, been in office now for one term, and then you've got a number of other candidates, and I just-- I'm interested to see at the convention.

I think it'll be a quick winnowing process.

They really can only, I think, afford one anti-Cox candidate, because he's an incumbent with all the advantages that come with incumbency.

And I don't know who will come out of that.

I would imagine Carson Jorgensen and Phil Lyman certainly have the most name recognition of the two.

Phil Lyman, interestingly, did say he would gather signatures, and I've seen on social media him putting out that his volunteers are gathering, even though he's been a big critic of the signature gathering process.

But ultimately, Spencer Cox is on the ballot, and I think there will be one other candidate that probably goes through convention to join him there.

But I could be wrong.

Damon Cann: I wouldn't be surprised if Cox managed to win outright at convention.

A decent chance.

I wouldn't rule out the ability of Carson Jorgensen or Representative Lyman to be able to come through and end up in a primary, but to me, look, all due respect to the delegates, they serve a very important function.

It's a very important political process that we go through in the state of Utah.

In this particular race, regardless of what happens at convention, Spencer Cox is in the driver's seat for winning the Republican nomination.

Jason Perry: Of course, the Democrats have a candidate in this race also who is doing a lot of time on the road, talking to people about his candidacy.

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: Yeah, Brian King is the sole candidate for the Democrats for the governor's race, and so there's not the issue of a convention battle or collecting signatures which, you know, that's part of running in the opposition party is that you have an opportunity to talk about the job and the race and worry less at this point, at least early on, early days, worry less about catering to delegates or collecting signatures.

And those are, you know, like you said, very important.

The delegate process is an important process that engages voters at the community level, but Brian King right now gets to run a very different race than any of the Republican candidates are able to right now.

Jason Perry: Okay, I wanna get to just a couple more races in the time that we have left.

I want to talk about CD-3 for a second.

All right, Daniel, this is an interesting one, John Curtiss, of course, running for Senate, so this seat is open.

Talk about what's happening there.

We have two qualified candidates by signature gathering, Case Lawrence and John Dougall.

But what the most interesting thing about this race to me is the convention only candidates, and they're names that we've heard for a little while.

They've run either in office or have been before.

Mike Kennedy, Zac Wilson, Chris Herrod, Clayton Hunsaker.

They're all convention only.

Daniel Woodruff: I think it'll be a very competitive convention race.

Mike Kennedy is a state senator, he's run before, he challenged-- or didn't challenge, but he ran against Mitt Romney in 2018.

Chris Herrod has been served very well by the delegates in the past.

He has multiple times advanced to the primary election in CD-3 against John Curtis thanks to the delegates, so that will be a very competitive time in the CD-3 race due to the number of candidates that are only convention candidates that have a good shot of getting to the ballot.

Jason Perry: Let's talk about some of these county conventions that are coming up.

So, the Democrats held theirs on March 31.

I have one question for you, Representative, on this.

We're seeing a sort of this development here in the Democratic Party where not just do you have a couple challengers in there, but people who are in sitting positions right now being challenged and not performing as well as they might think at convention.

Jennifer Dailey-Provost: Correct, and this, again, goes to this interesting dynamic about how convention votes sometimes differ very, you know, a great degree to how races play out in primaries.

And, you know, even going back to the congressional race when Mike Kennedy ran for the Senate, he won at convention, but then lost the primary, of course, to Mitt Romney.

And so, you know, smaller potatoes, different races, certainly at the state legislative level, but we've got a handful of incumbent Democrats who were challenged in primaries and lost outright at convention.

One lost at convention but still got signatures, and so there's, you know, there's a three-way primary race in House District 24, and I think it just speaks to the broader political climate that people are, you know, to some degree are more engaged in, certainly at the delegate level.

Jason Perry: Daniel, the Republican party is having it also when you start talking about some of these races like our State Senate, for example, when you start looking at Wayne Harper, for example, the longest serving member of the legislature getting a challenge.

Lincoln Fillmore, and also on April 13 for the Salt Lake County Republicans, the first test of Natalie Cline.

Daniel Woodruff: This will be a big race to watch.

So, on tomorrow, Saturday, Natalie Cline will have to face the big test.

She is only through a convention process, so she's not gathered signatures.

Her opponent, Amanda Bollinger, I believe, has gathered signatures and has secured a place on the ballot, but Natalie Cline has been under tremendous controversy for insinuating that a high school athlete was transgender when in fact she was not.

It led to a very rare censure from the Utah legislature and condemnation from just about everybody.

And so, this is Natalie Cline's point where she's going to find out, do the delegates care or not?

Are they going to move her to the primary, or are they going to say we've had enough, and we're gonna go with the the challenger, Amanda Bollinger?

Jason Perry: Damon, with our last 30 seconds here, I want to end a very positive note right here.

The International Olympic Committee has been in town this week, and it turns out by surveys, et cetera, 80% of Utahns say they want-- this transcends all politics.

They want the Olympics here in 2034.

Damon Cann: Isn't it great to have an issue that transcends party lines and differences?

In Utah we love the Olympics, we're proud of the legacy from 2002, we love to play on the world stage and do so so very well in so many ways.

Really excited to be already designated as a preferred host for 2034, and really looks like we're in a very good position to bring the Olympics back.

And it's great to have everybody excited about that.

Jason Perry: Should be the last comment.

Can't wait to see what happens there.

Thank you, 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.

♪♪♪ announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is provided in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Foundation Fund, Merit Medical, and by contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

♪♪♪ ...