♪♪♪ 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, as state conventions approach, tensions rise as delegates prepare to cast their votes on candidates and issues.

With the midterms approaching, voters weigh in on the priorities that could impact the ballot box.

And Utahns react to high profile campaign endorsements and new details on what happened in the final days of the presidential election.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ 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 Francis Gibson, former Republican member of the Utah House of Representatives; Lindsay Whitehurst, reporter with the Associated Press, and Jeff Merchant, former chair of the Utah Democratic Party.

So glad to have all of you here with us this evening.

This is a big weekend in politics.

Our state conventions are happening, Democrat side, the Republican side.

Today, we have we have party leaders.

We have former members of the legislature candidates and Lindsay you're doing such a great job talking with voters today.

So we're gonna talk about the conventions.

We're gonna talk first about the importance of them, what's going to happen this weekend and then we'll get to some of the candidates as well because there are some interesting races and some issues on the agenda this weekend.

Representative I wanna start with you, though for a second.

Talk about the importance, I know through the Republican lens, the importance of this state convention that's happening on Saturday for the party.

Francis Gibson: Oh wow, you have thousands of delegates and people who were elected by their local communities to be delegates and to represent their views based on where they live and they're gonna come together and we're gonna listen to different candidates espouse what they feel their beliefs are why they think they would be better as a newly elected or an incumbent, why they should continue.

For me I think the conventions are sort of the heart and soul of getting to know who the candidate is.

It's the opportunity for you to kind of kick the tires and really take something for a test drive and see who these candidates are.

It's not about TV commercials, it's not about radio ads, it's about truly getting to try to know people.

And there's been a process over the last few weeks, where these candidates have tried to reach out to delegates and talk about the platform with their beliefs--so big deal.

Lots of big races going on, not just at the federal level, but also state and can state representatives and state Senators are being elected into, or the candidates are being, the nominees will be determined.

So it's an exciting time.

Jason Perry: Jeff, I understand you are going to chair the Democratic Convention.

Talk about the preparations for that and through this lens also.

Jeff Merchant: Yeah, you know I think that a lot of people don't understand all of the work that goes into a convention beforehand.

These, this process starts six, eight months before the convention actually occurs.

And then of course on Saturday both on the Republican and the Democratic side, we'll have thousands of people gathered, and we'll just start talking about the issues.

I mean, the thing I love the most about the convention process is the fact that it really kind of distills down these people that otherwise seem like people you only see on TV that are far away in Washington D.C. or up at the state legislature, you know they're right there in front of you and anyone can ask a question and I'll tell you a lot of those questions are hard questions for some of these folks to answer.

I'm sure that representative Gibson has been in that situation before, and that I think is the beauty of the convention processes that it forces our representatives to talk one on one with the people that are going to choose whether or not to allow them to continue to represent them.

Jason Perry: Lindsay, I know you're talking to voters and delegates in your position, are they viewing it the same way?

Do they like the fact that they get to have just such direct access and sometimes they are the hard questions.

Lindsay Whitehurst: And that's kind of the cool thing about the energy at a convention, right?

You get a lot of people who are really invested in the process, who can go and ask those questions and have those conversations.

There are of course some cases with the signature gathering path, where we see candidates taking that path.

So convention becomes then a little bit more of a conversation rather than a crucial the candidacy is going to hinge on, on this particular day and that's the case with with Mike Lee's reelection, is that you have his two GOP challengers have already gathered signatures, so has he for that matter, until we kind of know where that's going to be come primary ballot, but of course there's been a lot of conversation about that race, so we'll see.

I think they'll still be kind of a healthy back and forth that happens there even though that's not the pivotal, pivotal moment.

And of course, you know when you have, when you have candidates that can get up there and make their speeches, they can still sway people, you know, and they can, they can still sway delegates.

And of course, the delegates definitely still have a very strong voice when those, when those votes happen that says something about where the race is at.

And there are some races where it will completely hinge on what the delegates have to say and how those folks come down on Saturday.

Jason Perry: Can we spend a second on those strong voices on both sides.

Representative, let's get to it because you know some look at these conventions over time, and it's not uncommon we've seen on the Republican side for some of these delegates with their strong voice to use them, they even boo some of these candidates.

We've seen that a couple of times, which I want to talk about.

And it's not even the case always which who they decide they want, it's not the person that sometimes even wins the primary.

Francis Gibson: I've heard people say well the delegates are the extreme.

You know they're the far right or potentially the far left.

And I kinda take offense that sometimes because I think these are people that are actually studying issues and they want to be involved.

Anybody can go to a caucus night and become a delegate.

And many times at least on the Republican side we'll attend the caucus night in the areas that I would represent in South Utah County, and we would see 2500 to 3000 people at a high school.

And you walk out of there with 100 delegates.

Those people were elected to represent these folks and so in order to be elected as a delegate you need to stand up and espouse what is that I believe in or what are some of my core beliefs or who am I thinking about in terms of representation, but yeah they are very very opinionated, typically, and probably because they've done their homework.

And so it's they, I would say not necessarily extreme but highly educated, highly informed, and they want their representatives to be accountable.

Jason Perry: Lindsay, I wanna give you a couple examples from some past conventions with some people who have been in office recently and in office right now because they did not win at the convention.

Gary Herbert for example in 2016, he lost to Jonathan Johnson, but then won with 72% of the vote in the primary.

Mitt Romney took second, to, by Kennedy in 2018, then he won 71% of the primary and then John Curtis, interesting, he came in fifth place at the convention, losing to Chris Herod, but then 43% of the vote.

Some who are looking at this weekend and they talk about the importance of it, but these are some pretty high profile examples of the favorites of the delegates may not have been the favorites of at least--these are Republican candidates, the mainstream Republican Party.

Lindsay Whitehurst: Right, I mean, you look just strictly by the numbers and races like that, that candidates that do tend to succeed at the --convention tend to probably tackle a little further right than even the mainstream Republican electorate, just strictly by those numbers.

Of course, there is, there are some theories that perhaps with a signature gathering path, like delegates kind of want to stake their claim a little bit like they have a, they have a general sense of who might dwell in the primary and they wanna make sure there's another choice that actually does get there to the ballot.

So there's some different sort of schools of thought on exactly how that all plays out, especially since that signature gathering path has been an option for candidates.

But you know you do see those numbers come out and Curtis's race that you mentioned will be interesting this year because he has I believe four challengers and I don't think any of them have gathered signatures.

So that will be one where whether he appears on the primary ballot is really going to turn on what happens at convention on Saturday.

Jason Perry: Talk a minute for the Democrats when it comes to signature gathering.

Same issue as the Republicans or how is it, how may it be different.

Jeff Merchant: Now it's not it's really not an overly controversial issue on the Democratic side, I mean, I think that certainly as you get closer and closer to Salt Lake City, candidates start to gather signatures, but outside of Salt Lake City, where there are, you know, some pretty controversial primaries that tend to go on, getting signatures is not something that Democrats tend to spend money doing, I mean, this is an expensive thing for candidates to do it whether it's for US Senate or for a House seat at the state legislature.

So for Democrats generally the convention path and then a primary if someone doesn't gather enough votes is the way that they tend to go.

Francis Gibson: --to say Lindsay made it a point, especially in Senator Lee, you know, we've got Ally Isom and Becky Edwards both running for that seat and all three have collected signatures.

And so, almost I think about this convention that they're goin', they're goin' in, their goal is to cause no harm.

Don't hurt myself, because I already know that I'm going to go into a primary and their -- tests are quite big.

Obviously, Mike Lee being the incumbent has a lot of money, but I've been quite surprised at the amount of funds that both Becky Edwards and Ally Isom have and so the primary is gonna be the really big battle.

And what does that look like?

And so this convention I think they want to walk out without really having any harm.

But to come out with the nominee, nomination from the convention I think it says a lot about momentum and moving forward because there are those people who elected those delegates represent them, and it'll be interesting to see how that turns out.

Jason Perry: Did you have a comment?

Jeff Merchant: No I think that I think that's absolutely right.

And I mean it'll be a feather and whoever comes out on top, it'll be a feather in their cap and certainly if they managed to win by enough that they're the clear favorite of the convention, I think that'll, that'll go a long way as we move into convention or into primary season.

Jason Perry: Can I ask you representative, you've had to run this gauntlet before so you had this experience, so sometimes people they look at the process itself and this is to your thought about you know you want to do any harm.

There's some out there that say I have my signatures, I'm going to be on the primary, why am I going to put myself through it at all?

You know, is that your opinion?

Francis Gibson: I think absolutely there are those who feel that way, there's some maybe from a Republican side more moderate leaning, and they don't want to face the hard questions.

But I think that's dangerous because those delegates like for example, you know I would go to a high school with 2500 to 3000 people and 100 delegates were elected.

They were elected and in those individual precincts those delegates had to run a campaign, had to say what they stand for, and they say you know what, I believe, Lindsay, you're the best person to represent my community where I'm at.

And what does that mean?

And so to not stand before them, the convention process, I don't say the purifying process, but it's the, it is truly the opportunity to speak to people one on one.

When you get to a primary you're gonna travel the state and you're gonna try to meet as many people as you can, and I think Ally Isom has made a commitment to go to every town throughout the, throughout the state of Utah, which is awesome.

And so there are gonna be lots of opportunity to meet Good people, but the state is so large in these statewide races, and it's so hard to see people and have that individual attention.

The convention gives you that, and when they go home, they talk about it with their family, their friends, and their neighbors.

Jason Perry: Interesting.

Go ahead, Lindsay.

Lindsay Whitehurst: Oh I was just, there is a real kind of grassroots energy there, which is cool like they to kind of be that kind of little D democracy, certainly, is really neat.

I think that, you know the flipside some folks would say it is a really time consuming process to be a delegate and we're all busy with our lives and from you know soccer practice, swim lessons, you know, all of the things that take up large portions of our lives that not everybody can make that time commitment even if they do have strong opinions to be able to do that whole thing that might be a tough thing for them.

So perhaps you get the folks that are most invested that do have the strongest point of views that will, are willing to set aside that time and so those are the two I think kind of differing points of view on on the place of convention in our process right now.

Jeff Merchant: Certainly goes from the candidate side, ignoring the convention is just not a good idea.

I mean in my mind the legislature, whether you like or dislike this signature path versus convention path, the legislature's created kind of a belt and suspenders approach, and if you can wear the suspenders and the belt to make sure your pants don't fall down that's what you do, right?

So, you know, especially on the Republican side, where there are so many races that have multiple candidates and where there's a lot of competition within the party to come out with the nomination and my personal view is if I were, if I were working with a candidate I would suggest you go, you do both, and you work hard at the convention and you work hard to talk to people one on one at their doorsteps getting signatures.

Jason Perry: I want to get to this point that you brought up a second ago too and you've had to face the tough questions, and they come.

On the Republican side, and then I want to get to the Democratic Convention too.

What big issues do you see coming up tomorrow?

Not apart, not the candidates yet, I wanna talk about the candidates in a moment but big issues that they'll be discussing.

Francis Gibson: I think tomorrow, they're gonna be looking obviously gas prices, oil and gas expiration, you're gonna talk about inflation, that's gonna be a big one.

I think locally here in the state of Utah with regards to maybe some of the state candidates, but also maybe with some of the federal offices are looking for, we're going to talk about transgender and the veto by Governor Cox, I think that would be an issue.

I think those are gonna be some of the big ones, education is always a big one, where do you stand on education funding and with regards to state level races, but I think those are some of the big ones.

And you never know.

There was always something that crawls under a rock and you're like where did that come from?

And that's the hidden surprise that you always as a candidate you're like, oh, I wasn't prepared for that one.

Jason Perry: I want to talk about some of those, oh yeah go ahead Lindsay.

Lindsay Whitehurst: There's a proposed change to the party platform on abortion I think too, right?

Jason Perry: Now talk about that one for a moment.

That's gonna be one that's gonna take some time, perhaps.

Lindsay Whitehurst: Right, I think it'll change the language a little bit to be, to be right now it says we are opposed to abortion except in cases of rape or incest or the life of the mother, and I believe that the proposed change would be more towards encouraging abor--I'm sorry, encouraging adoption, that's the opposite thing.

And so those kinda deemphasizing those exceptions for which I think kind of said something on where we're at on the abortion debate as a country, right?

Where we're talking a lot about that.

There's a case in front of the Supreme Court that may really make some major changes here over the summer.

So, I'm--so that will probably be a discussion I imagine too.

Francis Gibson: And I don't know that that's going to change, I don't think that passes globally.

I think there's a still strong sense of in case of life or death for the mom or, you know, the baby.

Those are things that they would look at.

I don't know that that's going to change.

And I know from the legislative standpoint, I'm very pro life, let's just get that on the table period, I'm a pro lifer, and I've always been that way.

But I think that at some point, there's, there's gotta be a, we're pretty strong.

We've said we're a pro life state.

Do we need to continue to talk about this every single election cycle?

Jason Perry: Okay I want to get to the issue itself, but maybe Jeff, since you're in charge of the convention for the Democrats, how does this stuff, so interesting what he says, right?

You never know what's gonna come up.

How do you manage that?

I mean, what is the process that allows something that maybe is not going to change at all just to rise?

Jeff Merchant: There's, I mean, look, in many ways, especially as you're running one of these events, you have to be prepared for everything which essentially means you can't really be prepared for anything.

You just have to kind of take these things up as as they come.

Now, particularly on the Republican side I mean, as you know Derek Brown and I--who was a former Republican chair, have become pretty good friends, and we've talked about this multiple times about how hard it is to be able to manage what you don't know is going to happen.

So of course, you work as hard as you can, either on your own or or through intermediaries to work with the various parties to know as much as you can beforehand so that you can manage the debate in a way that makes the process smooth.

I think the one thing that no one likes is when you get bogged down in procedure, when you get bogged down I mean, you know Lindsay talked about how delegates have lives, you know, we go to soccer games with our kids.

We go to dinner with our spouses.

We do other things like that and nobody wants to sit around until one o'clock in the morning because someone's engaged in dilatory tactics to kinda just slow the process down so the goal is to make things move as smoothly as you can, but you just cannot anticipate everything.

Jason Perry: Uh-huh.

Lindsay, you talked about this for just a moment, let's just talk about this, some of the issues that may impact the votes that come this weekend.

And you mentioned one which is just a theme that people were talking about is the bill on transgender athletes.

How is this going to play?

Because it seems like a lot of candidates are looking at, they're looking at the polling, they're talking to their delegates.

How is this one going to impact votes?

Lindsay Whitehurst: It is, this has been a major issue, especially in the last few months in Utah, last few years nationally.

It's been a subject of heated intense debate.

Of course, the background is that there was a bill that to basically, you see, you ban female transgender athletes from playing on the sport that aligns with their gender identity, on teams, and the concern there was that perhaps there could be some kind of physical advantage that transgender athletes could retain, that there hasn't been something we've seen in Utah that hasn't been a problem in sports.

So far I think it's we're seeing that for the background of this issue, right?

But of course, it became a big deal towards the end of the session when the bill changed and became a little bit more of a full on ban than had been discussed before.

And you've seen I think that that's been something that has been the subject of a lot of conversation, and it wasn't supported by all lawmakers to start with, and I think the lawmakers that did not support the ban heard from people who wanted them to do that and were very unhappy that they had not.

And so I think that that issue is going to be one that I think will will affect a lot of, the futures of some lawmakers going forward because it definitely has been something that has been a very intense conversation, especially in conservative circles these days.

Jason Perry: Representative, what do you think?

Will there be delegates on Friday--on Saturday, maybe what kinda percentage you think, not exactly when they're gonna say, how'd you vote on this one and that's why I will decide if I support you or not.

Francis Gibson: Well in a where representatives--or state senators that are in the house, you see a lot of these nominations have already happened at the County Convention, and the State Convention is if you represent multiple counties, have constituents in multiple counties, and so those, those delegates will get to speak.

Yeah, I do think that will be a topic because I think though there were only four people I think four athletes in the state of Utah that were affected currently, one of the things Utah has always been known for us to be proactive and not wait till there's a problem.

If this bill were to be addressed when there were two dozen, three dozen, then it becomes a lot bigger of an issue.

And I know that our good governor, Governor Cox, had mentioned at the time, there's only one candidate or one athlete that this affected.

I know that Representative Birkeland and as I sat with her last year before I retired saw her continually going out and try to meet with different groups and negotiate what that looks like.

And then last night, the Senate says, we're gonna change the Bill.

I think that's where a lot of people are hung up, was what that process looked like.

But absolutely are delegates gonna wanna know, where did you stand?

How did you vote?

How did you vote originally?

And then how did you vote on veto override?

Did you vote veto override because you heard from your constituents?

And I think what happened as you saw what happened at University of Pennsylvania with the swimmer and all the domination, people were just sort of afraid that that may happen here, and there are lots of constituents that reached out to their representatives and said you better correct on the veto, and maybe that's what happened.

Jason Perry: Let me, do you have-- Jeff Merchant: These are, these are young kids, and then we're talking you know I just I have to say that I have a hard time believing that this is as an important of an issue as a very small subset, I would even argue the tyranny of the loud think that it is.

And at the end of the day I think that the biggest problem is here we have a legislature that is coming in to override a veto, at the same time that we have inflation, high gas prices, massive drought, global warming, you know, air pollution, water pollution, a million issues that if at the end of the day you went to the people of Utah and asked what was most important, I have a feeling that this issue would be at the bottom of the list.

This is just a, this is a cultural war issue to get those extremes to come in and support, to support some of these candidates, and it's, it's really an unfortunate, it's an unfortunate thing that that's what our Republican leaders have decided to focus on.

Francis Gibson: And I would just, I think that that is a social issue, but all of the big issues you've talked, about that same Republican legislature was very very dedicated this year to look at air quality to look at water and what are we doing for water conservation, and the governor worked with the legislature, I think he mentioned it somewhere before where we're getting hung up on that one override vote, but the legislature did lots of good things to look at transportation, and look at water, look at air quality, look at housing, and try to address a lot of those things in this last legislative session.

So, that, I will agree with you, this is a social issue that has come up, but I don't know that it's necessarily a wedge issue, anyway.

Jason Perry: Okay.

I want to get to two, there are two more issues, one impacting the Republican convention and the Democrats.

There are two things we gotta talk about.

Lindsay, start with you.

Interesting stories this week, Senator Mike Lee sent some text messages to former chief of staff Mark Meadows for President Trump, that issue in this convention.

Lindsay Whitehurst: Yeah that, it has definitely been a subject of discussion since those text messages came out about a week ago, and I think for, there's certainly some folks who were unhappy to have seen that sort of level of involvement in conversation.

And so there was some pushback on that, and the senator has done a couple interviews now where he's talked a little bit about how, you know, these were informal conversations with a friend, but certainly there were a lot of people who felt like he was more involved than he should perhaps have been in this this effort on behalf of the former President.

And I think, I think there'll be some conversation about it.

I think there are certainly people with, who would have different points of view on it.

Some people are gonna be really frustrated he was involved, other people who are still very supportive of President Trump, former president Trump, might be frustrated when he changed his mind at the end and said this is, this, we should stop this, and he did vote to confirm the election, that Biden had won the election.

So it's gonna be an interesting kind of hot potato, I think, in this conversation, of course.

That we know what the field is gonna be for Senator Lee's race, and I do think that his challengers will probably not try to hit it too hard when they get up and speak at convention.

I think that in some ways it'll be a background conversation, but perhaps not in in the foreground, especially on that, at the podium in that public sphere.

Francis Gibson: I totally agree because each candidate is only given three minutes to give their speech, and they're not going to want to start speaking about what you did.

At least a smart candidate is not.

Why do you want to vote for me?

Not, why do you want to vote against Mike Lee?

And I think in three minutes, I need to promote myself and that is an audience where that will not come up.

But as we move to a primary, and I think as they start looking for the more moderate or the independents or some of these others that are out there preparing for an election in November, but the more moderates who were in that convention, I think that's when you might hear about the text messaging.

Jason Perry: So Jeff let's talk about why, I guess we got the once side which might happen with Republicans, but how are the Democrats--and put it through an additional lens that you are managing this weekend, is there will be, there may be a motion to, for the Democratic Party to not put a candidate forward for the Senate race and support, perhaps, Evan McMullin.

Jeff Merchant: Sure there's push on with Evan McMullin, who's running independently without a party affiliation to create a coalition, as he puts it.

Republicans, Democrats, and Independents to overcome Mike Lee of course, the, I don't recall the last time the Democratic Party didn't have a nominee for a United States Senator, despite the fact that we haven't won that position in quite a long time, we certainly have always put someone forward.

So that'll be a very interesting debate that may happen on Saturday, and it will be interesting to see how the delegates come out on that.

Jason Perry: So how are the conversations happening eternally on that?

Because I don't know of a time when that's happened either.

Jeff Merchant: Yeah--No, this certainly is a unique situation.

The Democratic Party has never been asked or been put into a position like this that Adam McMullin is proposing so it certainly is going to make Saturday an interesting day.

I would love to tell you that I have a sense of where the delegates are on this one, but I actually have no idea.

I'm, you know, as the chair, I'm neutral on the position.

I certainly value discussion though, and I'm always a proponent of talking about ideas, talking about what might or might not work.

So I think that, I think that it's, it remains to be seen what happens there, but it will certainly make the convention very interesting, and I think that it'll make Mike Lee's situation on the Republican side much more interesting once that's resolved.

Jason Perry: It's gonna have to be the last comment today, great insights getting ready for Saturday.

Thank you so much.

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 podcast.

And you can now follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Thank you for being with us.

We'll see you next week.

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