♪♪♪ male announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is made possible in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Endowment Fund.

Tonight on the Hinckley Report: New polling shows which candidates are surging ahead before the November midterm Recently released filings reveal which candidates are flush with cash and who is still struggling And leaders discuss the states billion-dollar surplus, and how politics impacts the state's investments.

Jason Perry: Good evening, and welcome to "The Hinckley Report."

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

Covering the week we have Dennis Romboy, Editor and Reporter with the Deseret News; Michelle Quist, Columnist with the Salt Lake Tribune; and Marty Carpenter, President of 24NINE Communications.

So glad to have you with us.

This is an interesting night.

We've got breaking news and also some stories that are gonna show why politics is such an interesting sport.

I'm gonna start with some polling that we've done with the Deseret News, Dennis, just hot off the press, and I wanna talk about the Senate race in particular.

We just asked a question as part of the Deseret News and The Hinckley Institute of Politics, if the election were held today, this is the Senate race, who would you vote for?

This is to all registered voters in the state: 36% Mike Lee, 34%, Evan McMullin.

Talk about this poll.

Dennis Romboy: It's a close race, it looks like, shaping up to be a hot one as we're about 45 days away from election day.

What I find interesting about the poll was there's still a lot of undecided voters even though there's just a two-point margin between the two candidates, and a lot of those voters are moderates and liberals, and it'll be interesting to see, you know, who can grab those, especially the moderate voters.

Jason Perry: Well, so, it's so interesting.

Michelle, break this down for a minute, because those are two interesting categories.

You might not think that you'd see a 16% "don't know" for two candidates that people seem to know so well.

Talk about those two categories that Dennis mentioned.

I'll just give you the number, 'cause you can break down the "don't knows" this way.

Of that group, 23% of moderates said they don't know, 22% of liberals said they don't know.

Michelle Quist: Well, I mean, I think it makes sense because they don't necessarily know the candidates.

Of course, they're familiar with Mike Lee, but they don't necessarily know a lot about Evan McMullin, and his positions are still kind of wishy-washy.

Granted, this is a very uncomfortable position for Senator Lee to be in.

You know, it's a very close race, it hasn't been this close in quite a while, and I think he's likely surprised how close it is, and hopefully he's taking it serious, but the McMullin campaign has been doing this since last year.

He announced with Democratic support from the state, and so the only ones who are, you know, not on board are the far, you know, far left, but those that are just kind of wanting anybody but Mike Lee are really seriously giving this consideration, and that's why we see the numbers.

Dennis Romboy: The moderates are probably torn between do I go with Mike Lee, who I've probably voted for in the past as a Republican, or do I take a chance on Evan McMullin, who says he's not gonna caucus with either party?

And if I'm interested in trying to win back the Senate for Republicans, do I want to vote for an independent candidate?

Michelle Quist: I wish we saw a breakdown on those numbers by gender.

I wonder if the gender-related issues have made a difference in who they're gonna vote for.

Dennis Romboy: I know that women are more in favor, according to the poll, are more behind McMullin than they are Mike Lee.

Jason Perry: Marty, you've worked on so many campaigns to be so close to these as well.

Help us with sort of that calculation there about who these candidates need.

So, Mike Lee, turns out, has a pretty good section of all those conservatives.

Talk about what he needs and what--and who McMullin needs.

Marty Carpenter: Well, I would start by saying this, that campaigns do very much believe in polling, but they believe in polls, plural.

And so, they will look at trend lines within a certain poll, so a Hinckley poll over a number of months.

I think we've done three of those.

But they'll look at other polls as well, and I know from talking to some folks in the Lee camp in particular that their polling, their internal polling, and I know we kinda shrug at that from the outside, but internally it's a poll you paid for, and you want it to go get good data.

So, if it says, hey, we're up a little bit more, you're gonna look at the entire spectrum of polls there, the full thing, and say, hey, we may be up 3% here, but we are up 12% here, so we're probably somewhere in the middle.

Now, what voters does he need to go get?

He obviously needs to make sure that the super-conservatives show up and vote.

His advantage there, they will.

As far as the moderates, he has to essentially make the case that Dennis was pointing out that he's the one you vote for if you want Republicans to be in charge, and if you're squishy on him, then you're gonna end up taking a look, at least, at McMullin.

Jason Perry: Dennis, one final point on that particular question is we tried to break out how likely you are to show up.

The numbers change a little bit for those people that said, "I am absolutely going to vote."

Dennis Romboy: Definitely, the people that say, "Definitely, I'm voting," Mike Lee has a 40% to 35% advantage in definite voters.

At least they say they're definitely gonna vote, we'll see if they actually do that, but yeah.

So, he has a little bit more of an advantage with voters who say they're definitely turning out.

Michelle Quist: But Mike Lee's money spend does indicate that he is taking the polls, all the polls, seriously.

Jason Perry: So, for one second-- Dennis Romboy: Even Evan McMullin's polls, I mean, all of his fundraising emails say, "I'm down by one point," based on Evan McMullin's internal polling.

"Please send me some more money."

Marty Carpenter: And saying you're definitely gonna vote, everyone says they're definitely gonna vote, right?

Are you in favor--it's like asking someone, do you like America?

Yes, I like America, of course, but that doesn't mean that you necessarily are going to actually go cast that ballot.

It might still be sitting on your desk or your kitchen table on November 9.

Jason Perry: I was surprised there was a percentage or two of people who said they were not going to.

That was always interesting.

But Michelle, one more thing on this, because we look at the favorables as well, and one thing that the candidates are looking at is, you know, the question is, do you approve or disapprove of the performance of Senator Lee?

Of course, this is about Senator Lee, 'cause he's the one person in office; you can measure this over time.

He was at 40% approval, 45% disapproval, but the behind-the-story number here is his popularity with Republicans.

He still sits at 54% approval with Republicans.

Michelle Quist: Yeah, he's upside down with the 45%-40%, and the 54% doesn't--isn't really a great number.

You know, he's the senator, he's the Republican Senator from a red state, he's been throwing out red meat, and people love him at convention, and yet he's only sitting at 54%.

Marty Carpenter: At the end of the day, though, there is no greater advantage in Utah politics than having the word Republican next to your name on the ballot.

He has that, Evan McMullin doesn't, and that's gonna get you a certain number of votes just by people who are gonna mark next to the R. Michelle Quist: Luckily, they can't check the box anymore.

Jason Perry: Cannot, that's true, no straight party.

So, Dennis, let's talk about this for just a moment about-- 'cause we just talked about every single poll ends with a candidate on either side raising money.

How big of a deal is money in that Senate race?

Dennis Romboy: It's a huge deal, and Mike Lee has a huge advantage, really.

I mean, he's raised almost, what, $8 million so far in this race.

He spent almost $6 million, which was more than he spent on either of his two previous election campaigns.

They haven't been really super competitive like this one.

So, money's important, and he's getting it from all kinds of sources, PACs and Republican conservative organizations, whereas Evan McMullin is shunning all of that kind of money and saying, "I'm only taking donors," individual donations.

Jason Perry: So, Michelle, for comparison's sake, Evan McMullin has raised $3.2 million, latest filing, and spent $1.9 million.

Michelle Quist: Yeah, I mean, you know, the non-incumbents always have difficulty raising money, especially in the posture that he's in not being part of a party, he doesn't have party support, and I'm surprised he's raised that much.

Jason Perry: I just have to ask you, 'cause you're the one person at table that's run for office, how big of a deal is this?

How difficult is it to really go out and try to get the cash for a message and a campaign?

Michelle Quist: It's difficult, it's difficult, and it's hard, and it's awkward.

And, you know, you have to get comfortable with it, and you have to get somebody who knows how to do it.

Marty Carpenter: And at the big money levels, you've spent-- I've probably spent the most, you're the one who's run, but I've I've written the most checks from somebody else's fund, and I would say that it does get a little bit tricky at the end to buy things.

You can actually have more money than there is inventory to go out and buy, at least that's strategically buyable.

I would say right now Lee has all the money he needs to go out and buy whatever he needs to help make this happen, and don't forget it's not just about what's in his coffer, it's on either side, McMullin or Lee, it's about what's being spent by outside groups who are also buying up airtime and digital spaces.

Jason Perry: Talk about what is happening from outside groups in this race.

Marty Carpenter: Well, I think you're seeing a lot of the--the interesting balance on the messaging positioning on this is that the campaigns get to spend--or at least let's take Lee for example, he gets to spend on messages about how he's a good guy.

And then the PACs come out and they drop the hammer.

Here's why Evan McMullin is evil.

I don't think we've seen it as much in reverse, although you're seeing outside spending on the McMullin side attacking Lee, but I can speak specifically to the Lee strategy that way, that they're letting the outside groups, or at least there's nothing they can do to stop the outside groups from having this kind of anti-messaging, but that's where you're seeing the balance.

It actually--the outside money allows campaigns to go be good guys in how they want to message about themselves.

Michelle Quist: Yeah, but the voter can rarely distinguish between who's paying for the message, and so if they see a lot of negative, they're gonna assign it to whoever's campaign on behalf of that negative campaign advertisement is, and so it's always a tricky thing to decide how to do that.

Dennis Romboy: We always say negative campaigning doesn't work in this state; I don't know that it doesn't work, honestly.

I don't know that that's true-- we say that, but I don't know that that's true.

Marty Carpenter: People would wish that it doesn't work, it definitely does work, because we are not fundamentally different beings then the rest of the country.

Michelle Quist: We get more offended by it.

"Oh, how could you?"

Dennis Romboy: "How could you do that, how can you say that?"

Marty Carpenter: Which in this case I think, you know, both sides have a way that they can use that negative to their advantage, because if you're going back to your earlier question about what type of voters or what does Mike Lee need to do, he just needs to put enough doubt in people's minds who maybe don't love him the way his base does that this other guy isn't the best alternative, because is he really a Republican?

Like, there are a lot of those doubtful messages you can float out there that are to his advantage.

Dennis Romboy: And is that really gonna ramp up here in the next weeks before election day when you see more of that?

We see a lot already on the airwaves, and social media, I mean, it's all over the place.

Marty Carpenter: Not to mention election day is, what?

Right, what is election day?

There's the day where all the ballots have to be in, but people can start voting three weeks before that when they get their ballots.

Jason Perry: Right, the ballots are coming in the mail in the not-too-distant future; very interesting.

Let's talk for a moment about our congressional districts.

We've done some polling on this too, I can go through the numbers, but it looks like every incumbent, Dennis, is completely safe.

Dennis Romboy: Completely safe, I don't know if there's any other way to say it.

There's really no challenge from the Democrats.

A couple of them are polling okay, but not near enough to take out any of the incumbent Republican Congressmen.

Michelle Quist: I mean, it's hard for the party to come together and run, you know, help people run races, because the party kind of gave up at the beginning with the Senate race, so that I would say the party kinda stepped out of the whole election, and they've left all downticket candidates kinda flailing.

Dennis Romboy: They're all on their own, basically.

Jason Perry: All these candidates are just doing their own stunts?

Michelle Quist: Yeah, I mean, I mean, they likely have party help, but nobody's paying attention because the party has already dismissed itself.

Dennis Romboy: Some of them haven't even raised any money even, so.

Marty Carpenter: My biggest anxiety was that you were going to ask me to name the four Democrats running for the House seats, because I don't know that I could actually do that, even though you've sent me a list of them last night, and I should've run through that and committed them to memory, but, you know, at this point, those four races, we know exactly what's gonna happen.

Jason Perry: So, how do you position the Democratic party?

So, with that backdrop, and considering even for the Senate race, the Democrats voted to not put forward Kael Weston and to support Evan McMullin.

Marty Carpenter: I think it's a really interesting time to be a Democrat in Utah, because you sort of didn't participate in the one, and the rest you probably could have not participated in, nobody would've noticed.

So, I don't know exactly what the game plan and strategy is for the Democratic Party in the state.

It's based in reality that they just don't have a lot of voters in the state, but, I mean, they're in a tough spot, and I don't know that they've made their positioning better going into the next election cycle and the one after that.

Michelle Quist: No, and we said this when they made this decision during the convention was that they've, I mean, they've done damage for the next ten years.

They'll need to--it'll take years for them to get credibility back.

Marty Carpenter: Is it worse to run a Democrat and lose like in the Senate race, or is it worse to say, "We know we can't win," and then if Evan McMullin loses to Mike Lee, it's like, well, even if we try to run what I think somebody could say is a wolf in sheep's clothing, then even then we can't win.

So that seems soul-crushing to me.

Jason Perry: Mm-hm, go ahead.

Dennis Romboy: We had a story a few months back asking, has the Democratic Party basically given up here in the state?

You know, in some ways it looks that way.

Marty Carpenter: It's not so much a Democratic Party as a Democratic Get Together, right?

Jason Perry: Let's talk about some political intrigue, 'cause some of these things are just-- you just haven't seen before, just so interesting.

'Cause I'll tell you what, it's hard to be a candidate named Steve in Centerville.

Okay, this is breaking news.

Marty, give us what's happening there with this race.

You have Trevor Lee who won at convention; Steve Handy, who was in the legislature for very long time, lost at convention, but was not done; but this is a story that just keeps on giving.

Marty Carpenter: This might be the most interesting race we have in the entire state.

I know everyone wants to look at the Mike Lee/Evan McMullin race, but this one's actually really intriguing, because Steve Handy, known as a moderate in the House, doesn't go gather signatures, puts his faith to the delegates, that ends up being a bad gamble, and the delegates pick someone who may very well not be electable, even though I've said the best advantage you can have is having the word Republican next to your name.

So, Steve Handy runs a write-in campaign, I think he's got a shot to win because he is fairly well-known for being in the House for quite some time, he's had some ecclesiastical service in that part of Davis County; that means people in his district know him from beyond just his time in the House.

This is the one--I don't know if I'd bet the money on Handy yet, but I won't be surprised if he's still in that seat come the 2023 generals.

Jason Perry: Okay, so interesting, and I want to correct you, this is Layton, adjacent to this district.

But go ahead, Michelle, I want you to talk about this and this this latecomer.

Michelle Quist: Well, yeah, this latecomer comes in and files also to be a write-in candidate, and his name is also Steve.

I forget his last name, and it doesn't really matter, but his name is Steve, so that--what that means is that a voter now cannot just write Steve on the ballot, and even if they intend that vote for Steve Handy, it won't be counted for Steve Handy, because it just says Steve, and there are two Steve write-in candidates.

So, you have to now write the first and the last name in order to get that vote in.

Who knows if it was collusion, who knows if it was, you know, part of a pact between Trevor and this new Steve, I'm gonna call him New Steve.

But, I mean, it's certainly interesting to watch.

Marty Carpenter: If you can't write--at least make an attempt at a last name, should your vote really count?

Like, I'm so convinced I wanna vote for this person, I know his first name, and that's it?

Michelle Quist: I mean, likely if you're gonna win a write-in, people know you, and so they know your full--your both-- both your names.

Dennis Romboy: I guess Steve Handy finds all this a little bit too coincidental, right?

Jason Perry: That's what he said.

Dennis Romboy: To be a little a little fishy, possibly, you know.

I don't know.

Michelle mentioned collusion, I guess we don't know.

Marty Carpenter: And Trevor Lee's doing everything he possibly can to try to let Steve Handy win this race in many ways, like, he keeps kind of having some public messaging challenges, I think it's fair to say.

Michelle Quist: But we're certainly saying Steve Handy a lot more, so.

Jason Perry: Yeah, that is true, and for the sake of thoroughness here for our viewers, too, so, Dennis, Utah is what they call a voter intent state, which is why this so interesting.

If you were trying to vote as a write-in for Steve Handy and you might have spelled Handy wrong, if you're the only Steve, the, you know, the clerk would say, yeah, they intended to vote for Steve Handy.

Dennis Romboy: Close enough.

I agree with Marty, I'm not sure that if you just write a first name in that that vote should count, but apparently our state does count those kinds of votes, so it'd be interesting to see if actually people write-in Steve and only write Steve, and which Steve they intended to vote for.

I guess those votes will probably get tossed out since there's two Steves, but, I mean, but if you put Steve H. or--I don't know.

Jason Perry: Can't wait to see how this one plays out.

Let's talk about another elected official that's been in the press this week, the Utah State Treasurer Marlo Oaks.

It's a very interesting headline.

Marty, we'll start with you on this one.

He announced he's going to pull $100 million in state money out of the investing firm BlackRock, these are the asset managers, because of a push they had on environmental and the environmental and social agenda.

Marty Carpenter: BlackRock, I Wanna make sure I get this right, they're around $10 trillion dollars in investment, so it's not like we're gonna make them collapse by doing this, but it is some pushback from an elected official saying, hey, you're starting to judge us on things, you know, in a way that--you're tryin' to push us into investing certain ways or acting a certain way or passing policies that are aligned with a certain ideology.

I think it's understandable to push back on that, but ultimately I think most voters would say, if we've got state money that we're investing to try to get a return, what I care about most is that we get a return on the money.

So, I believe that's been what he said, is that there are better ways to get a return on the money, and as long as you're meeting your fiduciary duty, I guess that's where most people would likely fall.

Dennis Romboy: This whole environmental social governance issue came up at the State Republican Convention, as I recall, and Marlo Oaks gave a speech about it and said how bad it is and we can't be involved in that as conservative Republicans.

I think he got the largest ovation at the convention outside of what Mike Lee got by talking about this, and a lot of people don't really understand ESG, what it is, what it means, but apparently gets people pretty riled up.

Michelle Quist: I think he was popular at convention, but a typical voter might be uncomfortable to see their state treasurer start going on Fox News.

Right, like this isn't really where we want our Treasurer to be, and the BlackRock is one of the big three financial--and what they're trying to do is affect and reduce carbon emissions, and they can go through--they don't have to go through legislation and all the rigamarole of conventions and national or international organizations to go and effect change, and they can actually go and effect change by meeting with certain companies, and so I just think it's ironic that the Treasurer is complaining about, you know, using environmental policy or using financial incentives to change environmental policy while he's using a financial calculation to, you know, affect political policy.

Marty Carpenter: But if they wanna change what the market force is, that's his reaction to the market force as well.

If we don't like this, we'll take our money somewhere else.

It's $100 million here, $100 million there, eventually it starts to be real money.

Jason Perry: So, the final thing on this.

So, this ESG, just to make sure everyone knows, it stands for environmental social governance.

We're hearing a lot more of it, Dennis, and it's not just in Utah with our own Treasurer, but we're starting to see other states take certain positions, particularly when it comes to certain industries, like Texas, for example, has a lot of extraction or places in New York where they're tryin' to go particularly invest in companies that have environmental efforts underway.

Dennis Romboy: And where does it stop?

Where do you say, oh, this company does this, this company does that, so we can't invest in them, but we can invest in them.

You know, I don't know, it seems very complicated to me.

I don't know.

Michelle Quist: And I think BlackRock's intention is that these issues, carbon emissions and environmental issues, are going to affect financial bottom lines, and if you don't start taking that into account, your corporate--your corporate bottom line is gonna sink as well, and so their point is that if a corporation or an organization or whatever who a fiduciary isn't looking at all the aspects that is affecting the bottom lines, then they're gonna be short.

Marty Carpenter: The question becomes sort of take a personal political stance out of it, right?

Are you comfortable with a group like this trying to push an agenda?

Right now if you're in the position where you say, "I like that they're moving us in this direction on climate change," great.

Now take it and make it the exact opposite.

What if they were saying we're pushing to prohibit abortion?

Would you still be as comfortable with your--with the same system being in place if they were pushing a different agenda?

So, they're you're starting from the standpoint of do we like this based on what they're trying to push, now let's make it sort of the opposite and figure out, do you still like their general involvement in the issue, or do you just sort of align with that particular issue?

Michelle Quist: That could be true if you think environmental issues are political.

If you think environmental issues are just facts that affect the world, then it might be a little different.

Jason Perry: One more thing, so, Michelle, I wanna ask you this question because we talked about this when you were on the show during the last season about efforts on abortion and laws dealing with abortion.

Last week on our show we talked about this letter that came from several members of the legislature, including Kera Birkeland and several other-- Karianne Lisonbee was the other one on this.

So, it was one of those things-- those letters that sounded pretty harsh, and we had more traction on that issue this week.

Michelle Quist: Yeah, well in the letter included, you know, citations to legal authorities, and it said that, you know, we can't arrest you now, we can't penalize you now, but we certainly will prosecute you later.

First of all, they're not attorneys, they shouldn't be sending legal letters on-- covered--you know, cover letters, House of Representative cover letters.

Second of all, they're also-- they're legislators, they're not prosecutors.

They can't threaten to prosecute somebody.

And now they're saying that the new development is that they're saying, well, "It was just our opinion, and, you know, we agree, we'll follow the law."

Like, I mean, they should really double-check it, or I don't know if anybody's, you know, editing them or what's going on, but, you know, there should be kind of a double-check before they release these things, because it's not the first time.

Jason Perry: Go ahead, Dennis.

Dennis Romboy: No, I was just thinking some of the people that signed that letter on House letterhead, they're candidates, they're not House members.

I don't understand how you can put your name on a document purporting to be from the House of Representatives, and you're not a member of the House.

Marty Carpenter: Not to mention there's an element of sort of stay in your lane.

I think it's great if they have an opinion.

I think it's great if they want to express their opinion.

In a position where you're a member of the House, you're actually advantaged in doing that in a number of ways.

You get to go pass the laws, you get to go work with your colleagues to pass those laws.

Once they're passed though, the legislative branch isn't the muscle other than creating new laws.

Executive branch is the muscle, and when there's a disagreement between those two, judiciary gets to decide.

That's kind of the fundamentals of how the system is set up.

Have your opinion, send the letter, I think you've gotta be real careful as a general legislative body to not get into that crossing the lane to where you're doing what the executive branch does.

Michelle Quist: And the AG said he had nothing to do with this letter.

Jason Perry: Did say that.

Okay, I'm gonna end with another note.

I want to talk about civility in politics.

We had a very significant visitor this week at the Gary R. Herbert Institute for Public Policy.

We had the former vice president, Mike Pence, in the state of Utah giving a speech to students.

I want to play a clip from that, because it kind of got to the civility angle.

Let's watch this clip.

Mike Pence: I truly do believe that here in the year 2022 and in the years that follow, the American people have an opportunity to restore our national unity, to rebuild the bonds that unite us, and renew the promise of every American of every race and creed and color if we build on a foundation of freedom.

And I would submit if we continue to allow the angry, radical voices on the extremes to keep dumping toxic waste into the headwaters of culture or politics, we'll only get more poisonous over time.

Jason Perry: Dennis, give us a comment on the speech.

It's interesting, because we know him well, and this context is interesting.

Dennis Romboy: It's interesting given the fact that he worked for maybe perhaps the most uncivil president that we've had and he's calling for civility.

Yeah, I mean, yes, I agree with all that, who doesn't agree with what he had to say?

You know, I mean, the interesting question coming out from that was is he gonna run for president or not?

Jason Perry: Yeah, so, Michelle, that's what I'm wondering, right?

So, the people looking at a message like that, they think, "I wonder if we're gonna see that guy on the ballot."

Michelle Quist: Yeah, I don't know, and he said, you know, "Well, I'll let you know," or, you know, he didn't-- it's not determined from--that he's telling us anyway.

I don't know.

I don't--I mean, like, you know, like Dennis said where everybody agrees, you know.

The angry voices on the side, on the far sides have always been what kind of tries to tear this country apart.

We've been talkin' about civility for decades, I think we'll continue to do it, but I think it's also important to make sure that, you know, a call for civility doesn't mean that, you know, we can't share opinions.

Jason Perry: Marty, in our last 30 seconds, does a message like that work?

Does it motivate?

Marty Carpenter: That's what he's trying to find out.

This is message testing 101.

He's making the rounds to some friendly places and saying, "Freedom, freedom, do you like me enough to clap when I say freedom?

Okay, you do; how about dumping toxic messages?

Did you react to that?

Do you like that message?

Do I need to change it a little bit?"

This is obviously setting up to see if it's viable for him to run for president.

This is all about trying to test with audiences like a comedian working a small club before he goes and does a Netflix special.

Testing out material before you take it to primetime.

Jason Perry: So much, and we'll be watching that one closely.

I'm sure we're going to have others coming to the state we'll watch as well.

Thank you so much for your great insights 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.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪