♪♪♪ 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."

Inflation continues to dominate headlines as Utahns grapple with its impact on their wallets and their votes.

Utah's governor joins a coalition of leaders working against President Biden's plan to forgive student loan debt.

And as the midterm election nears, long simmering topics reach a boiling point.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ 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 Jay Evensen, Senior Columnist with the Deseret News; Heidi Hatch, Anchor with KUTV 2News; and Ben Winslow, Reporter with Fox 13 news.

Thank you so much for being with us.

A lot happening in the political world this week.

I want to start off with some decisions that happening in Washington D.C. from the president himself impacting students all over the country.

I wanna talk about student loans.

Jay, let's talk about this plan that has that has been proposed here for students.

President Biden announced the plan would be this: $10,000 of federal student loan debt could go away for people who earn less than $125,000 and up to $20,000 loan forgiveness for those who went to college on Pell Grants.

Talk about the politics of this, maybe even the timing.

Jay Evensen: Well, yes, well the timing, it's interesting because it's an election year, of course.

But there was a lot of talk, I think the president was trying to decide where to put that bar, you know, $125,000 is a lot of money.

Do you put it there, do you put it somewhere lower?

He chose to go higher, and it's caused--that's kinda been the sticking point, and a lot of people that say, look, we think that lower income people ought to get some help, but when you're talking about people making $125,000 or $250,000 filing jointly, that that's a little--that's a little much.

There was a study from the Wharton School of Business in Pennsylvania that said about between 69% and 73% of this forgiveness will go to aid the top 60% of earners in the country, and that's kind of where the Republicans are tryin' to hit it from.

Jason Perry: Well, where they are, Heidi, the Republicans are hitting it.

In fact, just yesterday, we see this letter come out, 22 Republican governors in the United States sent a letter to President Biden, saying, "You need to immediately withdraw this plan" because they think that this is not what the government should be doing when it comes to student loans.

Heidi Hatch: That's right, and I think even one more, the Massachusetts governor, added his name after the fact.

I'm not sure exactly why, but we have a lot of Republican governors where you're looking at it and thinking, okay, does this win them any points, does this help at home, does it help?

Because also there was a handful that didn't.

And the interesting thing is looking at the handful that didn't; they have plans within their own states where they might tax some of that money, and so maybe they'll get a win on the other side by not speaking out against it.

But interestingly enough it is a political football right now, because there's just as many people happy as mad about it right now, so definitely these Republican governors are going out on a limb.

They're obviously not up for election right now, so it's easy for them to go out and say that, but there's definitely a divide and rift between people of whether they think this is fair or not.

And a lot of people I've heard talking about what Senator Romney said, that there was irresponsible expectations that could come with this, and the big question is not just what happens right now, but if you forgive the debt now, what happens to people who get debt after that?

Will there always be an expectation you can take out as much money as you want and it'll be paid off, and then what if it isn't?

Jason Perry: But let's get to that quote, 'cause it's very interesting, it gets to the heart of where some of the Republicans are, as Heidi just mentioned.

Ben, I want to read to you what Senator Romney said about this, and get your reaction through the context we just got from Jay and from Heidi.

Senator Romney said, this was a tweet, "Sad to see what's being done to bribe the voters.

Biden's student loan forgiveness plan may win Democrats some votes, but it fuels inflation, foots taxpayers with other people's financial obligations, is unfair to those who paid their own way and creates irresponsible expectations."

Ben Winslow: Well, the president did campaign on this when he ran for election in the first place, so it--I guess is it bribing if you're fulfilling, at least from his perspective, a campaign promise?

However, the interesting thing about this is the level of which the forgiveness applies.

And is that enough to even satisfy your own base?

You know, people who wanted it wiped out entirely.

Heidi has a very valid point with what happens down the road?

In terms of a state like Utah, well, I don't know how this is really going to play out.

You know, we've not exactly been a pro-Biden state, really, so, you know, hard to see how this factors out.

You know, it certainly nationally it's gonna have a lot more implications than I think locally.

Heidi Hatch: But pro-Bernie, and I think a lot of people when he was running for office supported him because he was looking at maybe not even debt forgiveness, but making sure that college was free.

And so, I think a lot of people in Utah turned out and supported that concept at the time.

Jay Evensen: I think everybody's missing the real point, which is that higher education is too expensive, and so to your point, it's September, there are a lot of students out there, and what are they doing?

They're taking out loans so they can get through the semester, and so we still have this problem that higher education is too expensive, and that's a hard one to deal with.

It goes far beyond just forgiving loans.

You can forgive the loans, but you still have the cost.

Jason Perry: Yeah, so when it comes to the cost of education, I think it's important to put the perspective of the students in there, since they're the ones paying that tuition, and all across the country, state of Utah, those tuition bills are coming right now, and so they're talking about this too.

So, we've actually asked a student here from the University of Utah, Nahum Tadesse has actually filmed a question that he would like to ask you to see where this goes from the perspective of a student.

Nahum Tadesse: Hi, my name is Nahum Tadesse, and I'm a senior here at the University of Utah, double majoring in Political Science and International Studies.

And my question for you today deals with my education and the education of millions of Americans.

Recently President Biden released his student loan forgiveness plan, which is claimed to be targeted towards Americans who struggle the most with their college debt.

Here in Utah, residents owe a collective of $10.1 billion in student loans.

So, my question is how will Biden's student loan forgiveness plan affect Utahns, and what will the impacts be to our economy?

Thank you.

Heidi Hatch: I think the big question people have right now is that when you're pumping more money into the economy, that inflation will get worse, because nothing is free, you can't--you don't just wipe out debt.

The money has to come from somewhere, and there have been some studies saying that, you know, this wouldn't hurt the inflation we're dealing with right now because once people have to start paying their loans again after this two year break, after December, that some of that money will start going towards the loans instead of into the economy again, but I think that's the problem, is it's a big question mark and adding to the debt, and we're definitely in an area where if we're not in a recession already, we're going to be headed that direction, and so I don't know that we know for sure what's going to happen, but I know that most people are concerned that we're on the brink of something not great.

Jason Perry: Uh-huh, so interesting as you talk about the economy, Jay, because we've done some pulling on this, and to set the stage, with the Deseret News and the Hinckley Institute of Politics, and you saw there's about 307,000 Utahns with outstanding loans.

This loan forgiveness program would impact about 100,000 of them, and put that into context on the impact of the economy with one of the questions we asked of Utahns, which was, would you support a loan forgiveness program?

And, interestingly, 46% of Utahans said-- Jay Evensen: Nothing.

Jason Perry: No, absolutely no.

Jay Evensen: And you break that down by party, and Republicans, it was 59% of that opposed it.

So, you can kind of see where people like the Governor Cox are coming from, that definitely is playing into the party's--the party's feelings.

It's definitely not popular in Utah.

And but, you know, when people are worried about inflation, we currently--it's not like we're adding more money into the economy, because nobody's been paying on a federal student loan since the beginning of the pandemic.

We're already used to that condition.

That's going to change on January 1st.

All of a sudden people are gonna have that payment again, what happens then?

What are the political pressures then as families who are already hurting--are we going into a recession then?

What do you do with families that now have that extra burden of having to pay that loan payment they haven't had for two and a half, three years?

Jason Perry: We'll be following this one closely.

Certainly Utah has its own perspective on this particular issue, and it's gonna play out nationally.

We'll see the impact of these letters and other pressures.

No less controversial, Ben: the Utah Senate race.

Ben Winslow: Oh my gosh, this is--buckle up, kids, this is a wild ride.

Jason Perry: So it is.

Talk about this, we have sort of dueling poll results from the two campaigns.

Evan McMullin says he's a point ahead, somewhere around 16, 18 points ahead is what Mike Lee says.

We're getting national pollsters who are sort of putting these all together still giving Mike Lee an edge right now.

Ben Winslow: But it's the polling that we're seeing nationally, the external polling is showing it's more of a neck and neck.

And I think it's really gonna come down to the undecideds here.

And what we've seen in a lot of these polls that's been consistent is there's a pretty good chunk of people who are undecided, they have to make a choice.

When they go to the ballot, you're gonna have to choose.

And so, this is why you're seeing this race playing out like it is.

You're seeing things that were solidly Republican now moving to lean Republican or likely Republican, and then of course if you're a candidate, you are not going to release a poll that shows you under water.

So, you're going to say, look, my candidate's doing great, we're doing fantastic.

You know, we're ahead, or we're challenging, we're, you know, surging.

So, but it's that undecided that I'm really interested to see how that shakes out, because what's been interesting throughout this entire race as long as it has been going on is that you are-- that undecided margin is still pretty good sized, and that's been interesting to watch.

So, it looks like it's going to be a fight to the finish.

Heidi Hatch: But are they really undecided?

That's the big question in my mind.

There was another, I think it was called-- Ben Winslow: Well, they say they are undecided.

Heidi Hatch: They say they're undecided, but it kinda rings back to the Trump campaign, and when a lot of polls were going on, pollsters were talkin' about it after the fact, that they felt like if people were voting for Trump after they knew some of the things they didn't want to know, they didn't want to tell someone they were voting for Trump, so they ended up in the undecided, and that's why Evan McMullin, people really thought that he might be able to pull out a win in Utah.

So, the people were undecided, they maybe just didn't want to tell someone, so the question is, is Senator Lee in that camp where people have already decided on him, but maybe feel like it's not popular to say?

Are people really undecided and they're waiting for that Senate debate to happen?

I don't know.

Jay Evensen: We're going to start seeing more and more clarity, more focus in the polls because it's September.

We're getting now into that season, people are back from vacations, people are starting to see ads on television, they're starting to think.

I think you're going to see polls in the next few weeks that focus a little bit more and give a little bit better picture.

But I think you can also judge how close this race is by how nasty the campaigning is being-- been so far.

I mean, two years ago everyone thought, you know, when Spencer Cox and Chris Peterson were doing commercials together, you know, and singing kumbaya, well, that wasn't a close race.

But the closer the race gets, the more nasty it is, and I think both candidates see this as a very close race.

Ben Winslow: What I find really interesting is also the fact that you had Senator Lee, the incumbent, who has enjoyed a lot of popularity at least until recently, you know, if the polling is to be believed, advertising in June, and advertising for the primary there, and then now continuing advertising.

Usually we don't see incumbents having to do that.

I certainly haven't seen any of the other incumbents in the congressional races running ads at all.

Heidi Hatch: That's 'cause we usually have a Republican and a Democrat, and this time we have a Republican and mostly Republican who somehow has Democrats backing him.

So, that's the question is you have that big question of who are we voting for?

And I think that's where you get a lot of the undecideds from.

Jason Perry: True, So, let's talk for a second about who's backing, 'cause very interesting this week, Jay, as to the list of people that Senator Mike Lee put out that were supporting him, maybe support different than endorse, because that's a little bit of a different process maybe, but we had 48 Republican senators say that they were supporting Mike Lee, and at least one missing.

Jay Evensen: One name missing, and that was our friend Mitt Romney.

So, and it's interesting why Mitt Romney has said--his statement is that he's friends with both candidates, and so he doesn't--he doesn't want to get involved.

There's a question as to whether because Mitt Romney is a polarizing figure within the Republican Party now after the votes to impeach President Trump.

Maybe people don't want his endorsement.

I don't know, but it's very interesting that he's not--he's not one of them.

Heidi Hatch: He said back in March, I think it was right after the State of the Union speech, we pressed him on this issue, and he said at the time-- he was trying to avoid the conversation, he didn't want to talk about it, but when pressed he said that same thing, "I don't know if my endorsement is a plus or a minus."

And it really is true, because there's two different kinds of Republicans right now, and whether his backing is a good thing or a bad thing, we don't know.

Jason Perry: Well, you put this in context for us, Ben, following so much in politics and how these endorsements and support go, 'cause just just this week also in the Deseret News an opinion piece was put forward by Chris Stewart, Burgess Owens, and John Curtis, all supporting Mike Lee.

Obviously, we're missing one of our members of Congress in that one too.

Does that say much to you?

Should we make much of Mitt Romney not being on there or maybe Congressman Moore also not being on?

Ben Winslow: Endorsements are always interesting, but it's hard to say how they factor out to voters.

Do voters really care about them?

I think voters do--are interested in, you know, hearing that, you know, big community leaders' voices are interested in, you know, or are supporting this candidate or this candidate's platform; it's just hard to say how much it means to, ultimately, voters.

I think there--at least from what I've talked to people who are just, you know, lay voters, just average person, they take a passing interest.

Like, oh, that's interesting, but it's not really influential of their decision.

You know, on the flip side you see all the people who showed up at Evan McMullin's rally, Ben McAdams, you have Michael Steele, the former GOP chairman, you know, appearing to endorse him as well.

I mean, it's--but it's hard to say how this resonates with voters if they see, yeah, their congressional reps are, you know, backing the home team.

You know, maybe it's more interesting if they flipped and went the other way.

Jason Perry: When you talk about the support and how you influence, Heidi, I'm curious what you think about the debates that are coming.

I want to plug these because the Utah debate commission has just put forward the schedule, and in spite of all the, I would say, kinda nastiness that happened during the primaries, all of these candidates have agreed to do debates.

What is the significance of that, and what, you know, what kind of impact do you think this will have?

Heidi Hatch: Well, it doesn't surprise me they've all agreed to do the debates, because here in Utah we've always had these debates come right before the November election.

What I think Republicans are not used to is having to go debate in a Republican primary.

They're not used to it, they're used to coming out of their own caucuses and saying, I'm the winner, chicken dinner, here we go.

I'm goin' to November, and we'll deal with it then.

But I think this is a new thing they're going to have to get used to.

They're going to have to step to the plate.

I think voters are going to demand that they start doing that, so I think there's some pushback, but the expectation was that they would all debate in November, so that doesn't surprise me.

The one I think that we really should be paying attention to, though, is the Senate race, because those undecided voters may actually be listening.

And I don't know that usually debates change minds, but Evan McMullin so far has been running on "I'm not Mike Lee."

But at some point he's going to have to answer some questions about where he stands.

You can't both-sides it, because he's really trying to get those Republicans who lean a little more center, he's tryin' to get Democrats, but he's going to have to take some specific stands on specific issues that so far on Twitter and the commercials battling each other out, he hasn't had to do, and I think that will be interesting for voters to hear them come to the plate.

People know where Mike Lee stands and where he votes, there's no question about that.

The question is where will Evan McMullin vote?

Jason Perry: Let's transition a bit because, of course, the vote is what we're watching very closely.

Ballots are going to be start being sent out to Utahns October 18 through November 1, people will see them.

Comes early.

People are gonna have to get those votes.

And already we have our lieutenant governor talking about voter security, how these mail-in ballots are not just secure, but everyone should have supreme confidence in it.

And our lieutenant governor, Deidre Henderson, talked about it just this week.

I want to play the clip from her as she's talking about the process and about these clerks and why we should have confidence in this, and, Jay, watch this, I want to comment about where Utahns are.

Lt. Gov.

Deidre Henderson: We want county clerks to be able to give us their input and their feedback, especially have relationship with legislators as they're making and creating new law, but we want county clerks who can competently run elections as they are currently legislated.

And if we have a county clerk who has an agenda other than that, I think--I think you should--citizens should be a little bit worried.

This function, this role is really--it is partisan, technically, but it really shouldn't be.

There shouldn't be anything partisan about running an election.

You have the law, and you have to follow it, and you have to follow it with fidelity, and make sure that people have confidence that you're following it.

So, you can--you can not like a law, but you still have to be committed to following that law unless it changes.

Jay Evensen: Well, she seems to be--she seems to be intimating that there was a problem somewhere, and Utah's clerks, as far as I have seen, have been competent in how they've dealt with this.

Perhaps they should be a non-partisan position, but that doesn't seem to have gotten in the way.

The beauty, to me, of our system in the United States is that it is so fragmented, it's handled on a county by county basis.

That makes it so hard to try to rig an election in any meaningful way, because you have to get into all these different systems.

It's not run by some big national database, and I think we have to be really careful in messing with that.

I think it works well.

Ben Winslow: But what we've seen is a lot of attacks on the system.

People still upset about the 2020 election, claiming that there were problems.

There's no evidence of that being found here, and what it appears is the lieutenant governor keeps pushing back on those claims, those attacks on the integrity of our election system and how Utah carries them out.

And, again, it's been very successful.

It's very popular, people like how we vote here.

Jason Perry: And, Heidi, we have--we see no one attacking the mail-in balloting system.

It seems like in spite of some bills tryin' to put it more in person, that's going to persist.

Heidi Hatch: I think it's going to persist, and I think that as much as there was concern maybe in the 2020 election because there were some states that were rolling that out at the last minute, Utah's really done a good job with it.

There have been some kinks and some bugs along the way, but they do a good job in making this work.

And I think that it's made more people vote.

When it's sitting on your kitchen counter, I think people are willing to sit down, really look at the issues and vote in more than just the top couple categories, really look at their full ballots.

So, it's something that's stuck in Utah, I think generally people like it.

Even if they have a few questions about it, I think they like the way the process works.

Ben Winslow: Love it, I mean, that's what I've seen, and when I was referring to people like it, I mean, they just-- everybody I've talked to who just votes, I mean, they enjoy the mail-in balloting, the time, the pace, they don't feel pressured, they can look at, you know, look up issues, look up candidates, see if the platforms and positions align with theirs, see if they like their candidate and cast their vote, and then drop it off at their convenience.

Jay Evensen: How many people remember going into the voting booth in the old days and finding a surprise on the ballot?

You know, oh, I didn't know about this, I didn't study this one.

Ben Winslow: To this day, I still don't--yeah, the members of the sewer board, apologies to the sewer board.

Jay Evensen: But now you have time, you can sit there with the internet and look it up and make an informed decision.

It's a good thing.

Jason Perry: And when you start talkin' about informed decisions, what people are looking at, I want to talk about the economy for just a moment, because when you talk to Utahns about what issues are top of their list, and we have, right Jay, in our polling, the economy and how people approach those things tends to be top of mind.

Heidi, we've got some issues when it comes to inflation, cost of food, cost of fuel, that may impact how people are going to vote.

Heidi Hatch: Absolutely, even if people don't say so, it's something that we have a constant reminder of.

It's not something that just happens and then a couple of months later we forget about it.

We have to fill up our gas tanks every week, we have to go to the grocery store every week, and so it's a constant reminder of where prices are.

Now, who's to blame, how to fix this, you know, that's another question for another day, but it's certainly something that affects everyone.

We even see national studies that say people who are making in the hundreds and two hundreds of thousands of dollars, many of those families, because of how their bills are worked out of their mortgage, they're living paycheck to paycheck too, so it affects everyone, no matter if you're a Republican, Democrat, or in between.

Jason Perry: Okay, so, Jay, you've been following this.

So, it impacts everyone; how big of a deal is it at the ballot box?

I mean, are people going in and say, "I'm kind of lookin' at my my retirement fund, I'm looking at my bank account, and that's how I'm going to vote"?

Jay Evensen: I think it's a big issue, yes, for everything that you just stated.

The price of eggs, have you looked at the price of eggs?

I mean, it's up, like, 40% over a year ago.

These impact people on a daily basis.

We have a lot of strange economic indicators.

We have full employment, 2% unemployment in Utah, and yet we have this inflation going on.

But I think that's going to be a huge issue at the ballot box, and obviously the party that's in power gets the blame, whether it's--whether that's valid or not.

Ben Winslow: I think it'll be a factor.

I don't know if it will be the factor.

Jason Perry: What do you think might be?

Ben Winslow: There are other issues also that are driving people out to the polls.

Abortion has become a big one nationally.

You may see that also carry out here in Utah that drives people out to specifically vote for or against certain candidates.

Other factors, other local issues, I think in the community of Orem, they've got a school district split.

That's going to draw a lot of people out.

Just, you know, there are certain candidates that people are gonna want to turn out for because they believe that, you know, this platform, things are so important that they need to elevate this person to a national stage on a state level.

Legislative races, we have some close ones there too, and I think a lot of the things that are happening locally in communities--economy, definitely.

I'm not dismissing it as a factor, but I'm saying it's one of many that will mix into a stew.

Jason Perry: So, Heidi, one of those things that Ben just mentioned, because a lot of things are rising, but we should mention it because it's just become, you know, very top of mind over the last day or two on abortion in the state of Utah.

Yesterday a group of legislators got together from the House of Representatives and sent a cease and desist letter is what they called it to abortion providers around the states.

Heidi Hatch: The question is, does it have any legal teeth in it?

Right now it looks like it was a message, and they just want to make sure their names are on a certain stance as people are going into these elections, even if their name's not on the ballot.

So, I don't know that that changes anything right now, and I think Utahns and probably every state are probably going to have to get used to the uncomfortableness until decisions are formally made.

It seems like there's a lot of legal questions and some back and forth that's going to happen, maybe for years to come on the issue.

Ben Winslow: Planned Parenthood dismissed it as a stunt.

It essentially--it didn't come from the legislature's lawyers.

It really is--but it is--what it was interesting in that letter is it was a warning also that these legislators said, we will be running bills in the 2023 session that will be going after abortion providers.

Perhaps if a DA declines--one way reference was made that if a DA declines, they'll give the attorney general the authorization and the power to go after prosecutors.

So, say Salt Lake County says no, and, you know, the AG can say yes.

It just also warned bills are coming.

Jay Evensen: Interesting political strategy, because this hasn't really worked well nationally for Republicans, and there's a lot of evidence that a lot of women are registering to vote and are planning to vote because of that very issue, because they feel Republicans are really overstepping in abortion law.

So, it's interesting to see why they would keep doing that.

It doesn't seem to be a winning strategy.

Jason Perry: But how will this carry forward in the legislative session?

Is Ben just said, Heidi, we see several legislators that are on--that wrote that letter that have sponsored legislation in the past, everything ranging from how they adjust the current law to whether or not they try to make it--do a constitutional amendment regarding abortion.

Heidi Hatch: I think a lot of 'em are just trying to see what sticks right now, and if you look back over the years, a lot of people who've said that the legislature has been wasting people's time and money in the sessions talking about these abortion bills, but really they got a trigger law into place, so they have that, and I think there's a lot of people looking behind the scenes and even meeting Republicans and Democrats alike, looking to see what they can do in their legislatures to maybe be a domino affect and do kind of the same thing were if one thing works in one state, it'll work in another.

But I think right now they're trying to figure out what will stick and what will work.

Jason Perry: Ben, in our last 20 seconds, Utah unique in this positioning?

Ben Winslow: I think we're hardly unique.

I think this is playing out all over in statehouses across the country.

Jason Perry: Yeah, we're watching it very closely.

Interesting developments that we will, of course, continue to watch here on "The Hinckley Report."

Thank you so much for being with us this evening and for your great insights.

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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