♪♪♪ 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," our panelists break down the results from Utah's historic primary election.

As the temperatures from a record breaking summer begin to subside, political races start to heat up, and Utahns react as major developments in Washington reverberate throughout the country.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Jason: Good evening, and welcome to season seven of "The Hinckley Report."

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

Covering the week we have Doug Wilks, executive editor of the Deseret News, Maura Carabello, President of the Exoro Group, and Glen Mills, anchor with ABC4 Utah.

Well, here we are, season seven.

I can't believe what's happening in the political world.

It's about time.

Glen Mills: A few things happened while we were gone.

Jason: It's true.

We're gonna catch people up, and we're gonna get to the heart of what's happening in the races over the summer and what's coming.

But let's talk for just a moment about what happened in the primary election, that happened since our show was taking the summer off, and a lot of interesting things happened.

Doug, let's start with you about the themes, that major themes.

We know what happened, not a ton of surprises, the major themes that we saw develop during those campaigns that we may see going forward into the midterm.

Doug Wilks: One of the main themes, I think, is these primaries happened while you also had the January 6 hearings, and so in some of the races it's really about are the January 6 hearings worth it or not?

Where do the Republicans align?

There's not necessarily unanimity in the Republican Party.

So, the themes that came from some of the races in the primary were really who owns the primary, who owns the party?

Are you aligning more with Donald Trump, are you more in a moderate space, or just where are you?

So, I think it became about that and about the character of the candidates, because many of the specific issues the candidates aligned as it relates to the Republican primary, at least.

Jason: So, Maura, how did that play in that Trump factor there that Doug was just talking about?

Just so people can remember the results, Mike Lee got 62.2% of the vote, Becky Edwards, 29.58%, Ally Isom, 8.22%.

Maura Carabello: So, that was the hottest race, but before I move there, I want to say one thing that happened is a lot of primaries in Utah, so I want to celebrate that.

We have-- and not a lot of unexpected outcomes, but the more participation we have, the more interesting it will be, the more diversity we'll have in who joins, whether its diversity in the Republican Party or the Democrat, I think it's really good that Utah had so many primaries.

The hottest one was the Lee race.

I think Lee comes out with some wind in his sails, because he performed well.

He really hit some marks.

I mean, he hit it in the 60s, which he needed to.

I think it was very telling, two qualified women.

I think for those insiders of us who are watching, you have a narrow shot to knock off an incumbent who still wants to run always, no matter what the dynamics are, and the more challengers, the harder it is to knock them off.

And so for many of us watching, when we saw, albeit qualified, the more of them made it less likely that any one of them could defeat an incumbent in the primary.

Glen: That really was a key storyline to me through the election as well, just the sheer number of people that felt emboldened to come out and take on an incumbent.

We know historically that's a very difficult job, a lot of people, whether it was through feelings of disapproval in some cases, maybe disdain for the incumbents, felt like this is the time.

I'm going to jump in the ring and make a run, and we saw down the-- down the ticket a lot of challengers stepping up.

Every single race up for election in the delegation went to primary, more than usual at the state legislature, and even down into the counties we saw challengers stepping up.

As you mentioned, overall, you have to say it was a really good night for the incumbents, but we did see some get knocked off, a couple on the state Senate, a couple in the state House, and some County Commissioners lost their bids for reelection as well.

Maura: And I'll attribute some of the primary to being something I think has been so healthy for Utah, which was originally called Count My Vote.

The fact that you could get on the ballot a couple ways, you could go through a traditional party system and get elected by your delegates, or you could signature gather and get on a ballot of a primary, and that, I think, opened the door for so many.

And it's still controversial, there's so many, particularly in the Republican Party, who don't like the alternative.

But I think what it resulted in this year were more people on the ballot.

Glen: One lost his seat because he didn't choose to gather signatures, and others were able to win because they wouldn't have gotten through convention, but they got there through gathering signatures.

Also a very interesting signature controversy with John Curtis's race.

He chose not to, and he came very close to not even making it out of convention.

I talked to him after that, and that's a mistake he will not make again.

Jason: Hey, Doug, can we keep that scene for a second, 'cause it's so interesting, and this is-- I think you're right, one of those themes of this last midterm, throughout the midterm election in the primary, that was so controversial, as Maura said too, you know, a lot of people in the Republican Party hate that two tracks opportunity to get on the ballot, but most of the candidates availed themselves of this opportunity.

Doug: Go ahead.

Jason: Please, go ahead.

Doug: Well, I'm just going to say you brought in the perspective, you brought in the vote, and even within the party because people who are at convention are pretty die hard traditional in their party.

They certainly are more conservative than some of the other parties or more liberal on the Democratic side than some of the mainstream, so by doing it this way, you get a broader sense of who you can vote for and what you can do.

But, John Curtis, you're correct, he's doing some things that are very interesting.

He's doing some very interesting things with climate and the climate caucus and in Washington D.C., but some people in the Republican Party don't like that or the messaging doesn't get there, so to be able to get through and really have a primary, a true primary, I think it's better for the state, 'cause the whole point is to try and get voters to vote, because we had issues with that during the past decade.

Glen: Putting that into some perspective real quick too, when we take a look at Steve Handy, he lost in convention, he was the incumbent representative for that district.

I believe it was 59 delegates voted for his opponent, Lee, and sent him to the general election.

There are more than 18,000 voters in that district, so that gives you an idea of the disparity of who's picking the potential candidate in that one race.

Jason: And you have to wonder, Steve Handy, would he make that decision again?

Probably not, because he's now going to launch a write-in campaign.

Maura: Which is so highly unusual, right?

So, the last time it's been successful is in the '70s.

It takes-- now, this is an incumbent, so-- and he's been an incumbent for a while, so one would suspect-- this is Layton, this is Layton area, he's been there for a while, and but you need to persuade people to remember.

Now, I think it's a little easier now that its vote by mail, because at least I'm sitting at my kitchen table, and maybe I'm looking at the news or websites, but I have to remember to go down to that section, I have to write him in, I have to spell it reasonably close.

We were talking earlier, there's some discretion, the clerk can decide if Steve and Steven or Handi with an I, I guess, I don't know.

It's Handy with a Y for those of you-- but he-- it's quite a task in front of him.

He's done an amazing job in short order raising money, and that will be a big part of it because he needs to tell every voter that this is a choice they have.

But there is a duly elected Republican that will be printed on the ballot as well as some other parties, and he's got quite a quite a campaign.

The question I have for him that I haven't asked him is he started the write-in rather late, and maybe you need to, there's the-- we follow politics all during the summer, but most healthy people are out watching soccer, and so maybe it was-- maybe it was right to start late, but he just started a couple of weeks ago.

Jason: That's right.

Doug, I want to talk about the Republicans in that-- in that primary to see what might happen in the midterm.

I wanna get back to the Senate race for just a moment.

Senator Mike Lee, 62.2%.

Here's the question, because he's got a pretty serious challenger now in independent candidate Evan McMullin.

This 62%, do you think he's going to pick up the Ally Isom, Becky Edwards voters?

How is he going to do with the Republicans based on what you saw in that primary?

Doug: I wouldn't deign to predict, but clearly it depends on what the messaging is surrounding his support of Donald Trump, the lack of support for Biden, the Republicans are not fans of Joe Biden, the amount of money being spent right now in the government is scaring a lot of people.

You have inflation, you have gas prices that are difficult, you have, depending on the language you use, either debt forgiveness or a handout as it relates to college loans.

So, I think he is in some ways keeping his powder dry, he's being very deliberate in his messaging.

There'll be a debate in a few weeks that will be very telling.

He's participating, Evan McMullin is participating, and they are both now campaigning, but who-- who is the true conservative, who is a true person supporting the Constitution, these are the themes those candidates are going to bring forward.

Go ahead.

Glen: Nothing scientific here, but just an observation I have made in people who fall into that 38% that voted for either Isom or Edwards in the primary, I'm hearing a lot of concern over the fact that committee assignments and McMullin saying he wouldn't caucus with either party.

I think that section of the Republican Party is really concerned about losing committee hearings and not having him caucus with the Republican Party, and I think that's going to be a big factor in their decision.

Maura: So, stay with by the numbers, I think Ally Isom's group aligns with Mike Lee's values.

They both ran on very traditional.

Becky Edwards, on the other hand, took some of the notes that Evan McMullin had about being a moderate, so those may switch.

It's interesting, if you talk to the McMullin camp, they rely heavily on non-Republicans to get their 50 plus 1 number.

I think that's a long shot just even about the actual numbers, not their persuasiveness, but do you have enough people that are willing to not vote Republican in this.

Remember, it's still a good old fashioned midterm, and midterms are often about the politics of D.C., and they're often about the politics of the White House, and so it's believed to be still a Republican year, even though it's tightened nationally, it's still believed that it should be a Republican year.

Doug: Just on the-- we asked at the Deseret News that very specific question of McMullin about, look, if you're not caucusing with Republicans or Democrats, what value can you have to the state of Utah?

He pointed to Joe Manchin and others when you have, you know, a 50-50 Senate where something's so tight that if you are going on principle and you're trying to make a decision, that you have an outsized impact.

So, maybe some of that depends on what is the makeup of the Senate, what is the makeup of the House, but what impact is, but that'll be-- voters have to make that determination on Senator Lee and his experience, where Evan McMullin, is he a Republican, a Democrat, what's an independent.

He has to kind of define himself.

Maura: But it is still curious, he does insist he's still not caucusing.

Manchin, Sanders, all historic independents, caucus with somebody.

Doug: It'll be curious to see if he changes on that.

Glen: This is going back a little, but I want to make another really important point about the Senate primary.

We saw Democrats making the effort to change party to vote in that election.

We had some local Senate districts that were razor tight, take District 9, for example, Senator Kitchen losing his seat to Jennifer Plumb, I believe it was somewhere 61, 63 votes.

A lot of people aren't talking about this, but I've often raised the question, how many Democrats gave up their vote in that race to switch parties and vote for Becky Edwards and ultimately have zero impact on that race?

Maura: We did some data mining on that, because I too found that really interesting.

If you took the most successful campaign of the switching was John Huntsman's race for Governor, and if you took them and said, okay, they were the originals that switched, and did they stay?

And then you ask the question of where anymore people persuaded to change their party affiliation to Republican just to participate, you found the throughline that was like-- unlikely to have been a factor in these state races, which surprised me.

Jason: Hey, Glenn, for a moment this comment that Doug made a moment ago about the heart of the Republican Party, which I think is just so interesting.

In fact, both candidates, you have Mike Lee, Evan McMullin, using the word conservative, both describing themselves as that.

I'm kinda curious what you-- what you make of that.

Glen: Well, let's note that Evan McMullin is saying he's not Republican, he's saying he's conservative.

That's one key point.

Obviously, Mike Lee is the Republican nominee.

And this race from the very beginning you saw Evan McMullin really trying to make sure that he in the public's eye is attaching Lee to former President Donald Trump.

And then you've seen some of Lee's tactics trying to tie Evan McMullin to President Biden.

And that goes along to this battle that we see historically when you talk about the midterms, it is mostly based on national principles and what's happening at that level.

So, both parties have come out swinging really early and often trying to make those connections.

Jason: Maura, you described it sounded a little bit like a math problem right there too, so you started talking about what it means to be conservative through whatever lens you're lookin' at, but also this reality for Evan McMullin, he needs all the Democrats, he needs most of the independents, and he needs a chunk of Republicans.

Maura: It's tricky, right?

I mean, it's really tricky.

I will say he has some success already in that the Cook Report moved it from for certain a Republican to likely Republican, which you'd still say it's likely Republican, but he has seemed to have moved the perception needle.

And for challengers perception is so valuable.

First, we have to believe it's viable, first we have to believe you might be able to knock off someone, and then they get some momentum.

So, I'm going to give some credit to McMullin campaign for creating a situation in which we're all watching the race.

We believe it's viable.

But then when you look at the numbers, he's got a really tough road.

When I spoke to him, I said, "Would you mind giving me your breakdown?"

It was incredibly heavily dependent on Democrats.

The next biggest was very much two thirds of almost unaffiliated voters, and then he had a rather low percentage of Republicans.

And I'm not sure that to rely on the Democrats, they're not very disciplined, I think it's a misnomer to say Democrats are supporting McMullin.

I think the party system, the party apparatus chose to, but I think for many Democrats he's still too conservative.

And they might just take a pass on the race.

Glen: And that was a very contentious issue at their convention as well.

It was, I think, 57% to 43%, 43% of the delegates wanted to go with Kael Weston instead of going this route backing McMullin, and you have to wonder, are those people going to be energized to come out in November?

Doug: I think they will be though.

I mean, just to tease our own poll, Deseret News and the Hinckley Institute of Politics are-- we'll have a poll next week looking at this race, and you're lookin' at registered voters, you're also looking at likely voters, you know, how close is it?

Now, media gets criticized a lot for doing a horse race, right?

So, we should pause and say look at the issues, look at the candidates, look at the state of Washington, who do you think is going to be best in that spot?

And I hope the voters do that.

We do crunch the numbers, and you especially crunch the numbers, which is terrific.

But what are the positions, what do you think they will do, and how will they put Utah's best foot forward?

Jason: Before we leave these local races, just one more comment, because it's in the paper right now.

An interesting thing happening with Joel Ferry's race.

He ran for office, if I remember right, the last five elections, he's won by over 70% in his district, but the Governor, Glen, let's talk about this, just appointed him to run a state agency.

Democrats filed a lawsuit, it's-- kinda help us understand what's happening there, 'cause it's gonna have an implication on who gets that seat.

Glen: Yeah, so he's on the ballot, he's expected to win in November, so Democrats are tryin' to take the opportunity to say, look, this is unconstitutional.

They made a complaint to the Lieutenant Governor's office, and she basically came back and said, I find this is not based on anything statutory.

So, she left him on the ballot, essentially refused to take him off, so now they're going the court route.

But the real story here is he has no intention of serving in the House.

He's going to stay on the ballot to win the race, resign, and then it would go back to delegates in that area to pick his replacement, and that's where the battle is.

Democrats would like to get ahead of that, get him off the ballot, and potentially try to win that see.

Maura: This is the tricky part about politics.

I've been thinking a lot about this, and it is hard when good people choose to do politically expedient things, because I don't want to leave out the part where they're good people.

Joel Ferry is going to be a tremendous Director of Natural Resources, which is what created the conflict.

He serves in House District 1, tippy top of our state, hyper conservative, no doubt about it a Republican district.

He has been a tremendous representative.

He was a great choice for Governor Cox to pick, but it created a conundrum where he was serving in two branches.

Our constitution is plainspoken, they settled that by him leaving.

So, what's left is now we go to a different section of the law, which is election law.

And this is a scenario where the Democrats may or may not be successful.

There is precedent that shows they may be successful, but leaving that aside this is where everyday life for all of us there are good people, and I believe this is an instance where someone good is making a choice that they can make, but I question whether they should make it.

And those situations are hard.

Jason: They are, the decisions by these folks may make it so that one Democrat is left.

Maura: Which doesn't change the outcome of any vote in the Utah State House, to be clear.

The political ramifications of sort of acknowledging you don't intend to run are for naught.

This Democrat will hold the seat for two years, and then, I'm sure, get soundly defeated by the next Republican.

And there will not be a vote that will be impacted by this switch of the seat.

Doug: I think there's moral high ground on both sides, though.

If you say it's a Republican district, this appointment happened, resign the seat, and I'm still on the ballot, Republican should control that.

If it's-- if that's the law, then it's perfectly reasonable for Republicans to do that, but there's also moral high ground in the other way.

If you have no intention of running, you shouldn't be on the ballot.

But that may require a change in law, so it's a fascinating thing to look at from both sides.

Jason: I understand a couple of Republicans are looking at their own write-in.

Maura: They have three write-ins, and one of them is the relative of Ben Ferry, so if you loved the Ferrys, write Joel Ferry.

Jason: There you go.

Since we've been talking about themes that have been going on all summer long, we must talk about the United States Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

I want to start with you, Maura, because that is having serious and direct implications, not just in our lives, but also on candidates.

Maura: That's right, and you know this was a tectonic shift, as we all expected.

I think the nature of the ruling also had, you know, the the directness and the verve in which the majority wrote it, and I wish they would have been a little more circumspect about it.

I think how it trickles down, the United States is having a battle with the advocates on both sides.

I do think it is trickling down to all levels in which those who are taking an absolute position about women's health are running into some practical problems, and I think this is where it comes to the state of Utah.

I think that we're seeing in polling that the electorate is more understanding of the fact that these are women's health issues.

There's the politic of it, but if the laws are too narrow, it impacts, and I think for women it's really hard to sit and listen to traditions that are having a discussion about personal choice and making them political conversations.

So, I think in Utah where it has been rather clear in many instances where our legislature will go, and we have several laws in place, I do hope that this opens a more practical discussion here about women's health, and we leave aside some of the politicking about the issue.

Jason: So, Glen, is that coming the session?

We're one of 13 states with a trigger law, it's on stay right now because of the judicial system, but what about what Maura just said there?

Glen: Yeah, I think there is going to be a look at that in the upcoming session.

One of the big things that we saw play out here in the state of Utah is just sheer confusion once that ruling came down.

Like, okay, what's next?

What's going to happen?

So, the Supreme Court makes the overturning of the law, I believe it was that day the legislature comes out and says, okay, we are moving forward with the trigger law, so it was implemented.

So, that day we're reporting, okay, all abortion except in very rare case is now legal in state of Utah.

That, of course, was challenged in the courts, a preliminary injunction was granted, so it was put on hold.

That's still the status to this day, and so then we go back to a law that passed, I believe, in 2019, a year before the trigger law, that bans abortion from 18 weeks, and that's where we currently sit at this point.

So, organizations like Planned Parenthood moving forward with business as usual based on that law, but still a lot of confusion as to how this is gonna play out, what's going to happen, and then you have this net of different laws all across the country where in Grand County, Utah, for example, it could potentially be illegal, but an hour away in Mesa County, Colorado It's not.

So, just a lot of chaos and confusion I would say developing from this.

Doug: I might just say that I would hope lawmakers and everyone else would come at this from a position of empathy, right?

Medical doctors and the medical profession tries to do no harm, that is the value they base on the value.

Do you have empathy for women, do you have empathy for children, do you have empathy for access to healthcare in every way?

Can you slice every single scenario and make it work?

And in some ways there are details here, even if you say, okay, in the case of incest or rape then an abortion might be appropriate, but how do you determine that?

And how do you determine it fast enough?

And is that a court decision or a medical decision?

And as close we get to the medical decision, take it away from politics, I think the better off we'll be.

But empathy is key I mean, you have to have empathy for the people you're serving, and I hope lawmakers don't forget that.

Glen: Just in case I wasn't clear, I do believe they will be taking that up this legislative session and looking at those.

Jason: Maura, one of the interesting conversations around this as well is who does this decision motivate?

All right, so we've talked about a lot of the key impacted people, but in the political world as well, just kinda curious what you're seeing out there.

Does this decision drive Democrats to the polls, does it-- what about the Republicans?

Tell us about this.

Maura: I think this decision is a motivator across the board, unexpectedly.

And here's what I think you'll happen.

Already you've seen it make major impacts in states where there's robust dialogue, like the Midwest, right, and there's pro and con on both sides.

You've seen it be the number one issue in many midterms.

How I think it will impact Utah and what I hear, so this is soft math, is that I do think it is motivating more people than we think, but in Utah we'll do it quietly.

We'll quietly move to people who are more apt to have a more robust conversation of health.

You must say as a female it feels like a very odd and direct attack to have people discussing my rights, and it's a hard reconciliation.

And I think there are many men and women, I don't think it's unique to gender, but I think there are many men and women who are ready to get serious.

So, I think in the state of Utah it will make an impact, a subtle impact in who and how you choose your elected officials.

We won't discuss it, because we don't tend to discuss these moral issues upfront in Utah this way.

Glen: That's one of the most fascinating story lines going into the election to me.

We've already discussed how historically you would take a look, and you would think, well, this could probably be a good midterm for Republicans based on the fact that we have a Democrat in the White House, they have the House and the Senate right now.

So, historically you'd think that would change.

You take a look at the economic factors, inflation, again, you would think that would benefit Republicans.

But all the sudden we have this X factor out here now with these Supreme Court decisions that are controversial, how much are they going to fire up the base and even moderates who don't agree with those?

So, that's going to be a fascinating element when you take a look at this historical factor and how this is going to play into it as well.

Jason: Last comment, last seconds, Doug.

Doug: About this issue, as a journalist, I've been a journalist almost 40 years, and the abortion debate almost went away because of what the court did.

It wasn't part of election cycles, it wasn't part of anything.

Now, it's part of a culture war, and you have the layer of a divisive, divisive conversation in politics.

So, it's frustrating to be in that place.

You would hope you'll be able to have a good, strong conversation from an empathetic point of view to do the best for women, for children, for families.

So, I don't pretend to have the answer, but I do think Utah has a chance of being a leader in this space.

Jason: Thank you so much for your great insight 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.

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