♪♪♪ male announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is made possible in part by Merit Medical and by contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you, thank you.

Jason Perry: On this episode of "The Hinckley Report," Utah continues to draw national attention as notable politicians visit the state, a new poll uncovers what Utahns really think about big issues, and in a race against the clock, referendum supporters submit their signatures for verification.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Jason Perry: Good evening and welcome to "The Hinkley Report."

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

Covering the week we have Holly Richardson, editor of UtahPolicy.com; Daniel Woodruff, reporter with KSL 5 News; and Ben Winslow, reporter with Fox 13 News.

So glad to have you all with us on the program.

Many interesting things happening in politics at the local level, at the federal level, but one big one I want to start with here is the power of the people, the referendum process itself.

Ben, I want to start with you because the Protect Utah workers had a period of time after the session to get signatures.

They needed--they need about 130,000 plus.

They got a lot more than that this week.

Ben Winslow: They showed up and in huge numbers, more than double what they needed, 320,000 plus signatures.

That is mind-boggling.

Even the governor was impressed by those numbers.

Now, the trick is, are they all registered voters that signed?

Do they represent the 8% of registered voters in 15 of the 29 Senate districts?

So, you know, we got to see if all of these actually get validated, if they shake out, and then, of course, we have the--they have--the clerks have 21 days to do that, and then they have the 45 day removal period where you are going to see some people out knocking on doors, trying to persuade people, saying, "Are you sure you sure you signed this?"

And, you know, you may see some people remove their signatures, you may see what I've heard from a lot of people digging in, saying, "No, I know what I signed, and I meant it."

Jason Perry: I want to talk about a couple of those procedural items, but let's get to the governor a little bit too.

And of course, this is about this House Bill 267, Daniel, because I want you to talk about the governor's response.

So, this gets rid of the collective bargaining inside of the state of Utah for these public organizations, and the governor has--had some thoughts about the bill when it came out, and he has some thoughts about it now.

So let's watch this video and give us your take.

Spencer Cox: I want to congratulate them for their signatures, not just the UEA but others as well.

It takes a lot of work, and to get 300,000 signatures is very impressive.

People ask if I was surprised and I said I'm actually not surprised.

It's called organized labor for a reason.

They're actually organized, they're--this is one of the few areas where you can actually do something like that because the organizations are already in place.

Daniel Woodruff: They were organized.

I saw a lot of these signature gatherers out collecting, and I think I'm not surprised to hear the governor say that.

If you think back to when the bill came out and there was a lot of back and forth about, what will it actually contain?

Will there be a compromise?

We waited for quite a while in anticipation of a compromise coming out, and at the end of the day they went ahead and passed the bill as it was originally written.

The governor was disappointed in that.

When he signed the bill, he did so with the caveat--he issued a statement saying that he was disappointed that this compromise did not come to fruition.

So, I'm not surprised to hear him congratulating the union folks.

I think his signature was more reluctant, but you know, depending on what he was hoping for in the bill, he was really, I think, waiting for something that was different than what was ultimately passed.

Holly Richardson: Yeah, I mean, I think process-wise now looking forward to this will not be on the ballot until 2026.

So, there's another legislative session between now and then.

Who knows what's going to happen?

I personally think the writing's on the wall.

I think the signatures will be verified.

I think there's plenty of overage, and then we'll see, right?

Then it becomes almost a PR campaign for, are you going to vote for this?

If you have a ton of initiatives on the ballot, say in 2026, then people start to get confused, right?

And they're like, "Well, I don't know.

Should I vote for this one or that one?"

Anyway, so we'll see how it plays out over the next year and a half, but.

Jason Perry: So, Ben, the legislature can look at this, and there's a--there may be a special session coming.

There's a lot of time, as Holly was just talking about, between now and when it might go on the ballot.

Give us some of the possibilities here, which might include the legislature maybe trying to fix it themselves.

Ben Winslow: Right, you heard, to Daniel's point, that the governor wasn't exactly thrilled with what was placed before him.

There is the ability to potentially tweak it and reach that compromise, but so far the governor has said they've had no discussions about that.

But you know, a lot can happen.

Certainly, this was a shot across the bow.

This was a cannon shot by the unions, and it shows, at least to the legislature, there is a lot of people who are very upset with what passed.

And so, you either go for a special session or, as Holly said, you tweak it in the next session.

Maybe you run another union bill that maybe is friendlier, who knows, that could potentially remove that from the ballot.

Or what we see is full-throated political campaigns in 2026 to get people to vote for this or against this.

Jason Perry: Yeah, Daniel, this is such an interesting point, and the governor referenced this, but Representative Teuscher also talked about it, said, "Well, yes, a whole lot of signatures, but we don't know exactly where all of Utah is on this particular issue."

Daniel Woodruff: Yeah, and ultimately it has to be threshed out and seeing, does it meet the requirements?

And when it comes to the vote, I think it will be--if it does get to that, because I think Ben brings up a really valid point.

There are a number of things that could happen before then, but if it gets to that point, all of Utah would vote, and depending on how voter turnout is and what the issues are, what brings people to the polls, this could very easily go one way or the other.

I think there are a number of factors that would determine whether it passes or fails.

Jason Perry: So, as I mentioned, there may or may not be a special session in May, is one of the things we're talking about.

But Holly, before we leave it, we're coming up to the time when we have to decide if there's going to be a veto override or not.

You need 2/3 of both bodies to have that happen.

What are you hearing?

Any bills on the table right now that there are enough votes to get?

Holly Richardson: I think there may be enough votes in the House for a bill or two, but I don't think there's the will in the Senate.

So I think if you look at both bodies, I don't think that there's the will to override a veto at this point.

There's not the votes.

I haven't heard that there's any kind of strong push to, you know, get people to change their minds to get to that 2/3 threshold.

Jason Perry: And you're hearing something--.

Daniel Woodruff: They do have some time.

May 6th is the deadline laid out according to the Constitution that they would have to do a veto override session.

So I think there's still time, but at this point, certainly, we're not seeing any imminent movement.

And I know there have been discussions, and at this point nothing.

Ben Winslow: All I keep getting told is they're just evaluating.

Jason Perry: Okay, all right, we'll keep watching.

All this plays into some interesting timing.

We like to do polling of the legislature, of the governor, of the people who are in elected positions right after they take action during the legislative session.

I want to talk about a couple of polling questions, and, Daniel, we'll start with you on this first one.

The question is, do you approve or disapprove of the job of the Utah State legislature, how they're doing?

And it came out 48% of Utahns approve, 37% disapprove, but the disparity is huge between the Republicans and the Democrats, as you might expect.

That's 67% approval from the Republicans, 73% disapproval from the Democrats.

Daniel Woodruff: And I think that same poll, if I'm not incorrect, shows that independents and others also disapprove more than they used to.

Is that right?

Jason Perry: Yeah, that's a 51% disapproval from independents.

What do you make of that?

Because those are two interesting categories.

Daniel Woodruff: We have a supermajority Republican legislature.

I'm not surprised to see Republicans toeing the party line, and conversely, Democrats.

I'm interested in the independent area.

I think what you've seen over the last little while, particularly last year when the legislature was slapped down by the Supreme Court a couple of times, that people sort of started talking about, is the legislature within the bounds that it should be within?

And I think some of that discontent can probably be traced directly to those issues, the issues of the legislature changing ballot initiatives after they've been passed, the legislature being told by the Supreme Court that they can't do certain things.

Republicans still dominate the legislature, and I'm not surprised to see that Republicans still approve of that, but I would venture to say that that's at least a correlation with something that we've seen in the last year.

Ben Winslow: Yeah, but you still see the same issue of people hate "the legislature" when you talk to them.

"I hate the legislature."

"But how do you feel about your individual representative or senator?"

"Oh, I like that person."

So they vote for that person, and then they go right back into the same cycle of "I dislike 'the legislature,' but my person is okay."

Daniel Woodruff: Turnover is extraordinarily rare.

Holly Richardson: And that's the same as you see federally, right?

"We hate Congress, but we love our congressman," right?

"At least he's--at least we know what he's doing," right?

He's a known entity, or she.

But yeah, it's that, I think to your point with judiciary, right, not only did they disagree with some of the decisions, but they had several bills this year that were like, "We're gonna slap down the judiciary this year.

We wanna tell them who's boss," right?

And we think that's the legislature, so I think that plays out too.

Daniel Woodruff: And not just the judiciary bills, but we saw other bills that were more controversial this session that could play into the public's perception of what the legislature is doing.

Holly Richardson: And again, I think reflecting on the national level, right?

So I think we've seen, I think, some other polling, too, that the Trump, Musk, DOGE stuff is pretty popular with Utah Republicans, and so I think that's reflected also in what we're seeing in the legislature and some of the legislation being passed.

Jason Perry: I want to get to that in just a moment, but, Ben, let's talk about the polling on Governor Cox.

That was the legislature we just talked about.

For Governor Cox, his approval is sitting at 52%, 36% disapproval, but the one that's interesting on this is the difference with the Democrats themselves.

He's at 61% disapproval there.

That's a number that he had--he had some pretty high approvals from the Democrats and independents a couple of years ago.

That has shifted a tad here.

Talk about some of the reasons why that might be.

Ben Winslow: I think what you're seeing is also the governor's own shift in a lot of his policies and his support of President Trump and his policy agenda, and you're just seeing that reflected here where, obviously, Democrats and some independents, maybe even some moderate Republicans, dislike that.

And so, they're kind of pulling away from the governor, where before they liked sort of the platforms that he was taking.

I think it is just a reflection of the national events that we're seeing.

Jason Perry: Holly, you're such a good student of these polling--this polling over time too.

So, you take a poll right after a legislative session, we have a lot of these hot button issues come up, you know, and over time we sort of forget about some of those things.

Kind of give your sense of where this is.

This--these are just snapshots in time where you think this--where it might represent where Utah is and where it's going.

Holly Richardson: Well, I think Utah is still a super Republican state, right?

Where it's not just super majority, but super, super majority, right?

And I think that that's reflected.

And I think some of the polling that has surprised me is the high approval numbers for Trump, frankly, within Utah, and I think that that just shows a shift.

And one of the great things about politics, or maybe the frustrating things, is the pendulum swings, right?

So, right now it's still pretty much Trump's party and the Republican Party, and that's reflected in Utah as well, but that changes, right?

And so you see--you know, I sometimes see people say, "Well, we had all these people show up at the AOC rally," and we're going to talk about that, Bernie Sanders and AOC.

And, "Does that mean Utah's gonna go blue or purple," right?

No, it does not mean that.

There is a rising discontent, I would say, within, or at least maybe a more vocal one, within the Democratic Party and unaffiliated voters, but that still doesn't translate into changes of seats, especially on the federal level.

Jason Perry: Let's talk about one more poll question.

It's interesting that we're talking about this issue of flags on campuses.

But talking about across the state, Daniel, let's talk about this for just a moment because we did ask this question about whether or not people supported or opposed that law, and the overall was 63%.

Of course, this is saying what flags can be flown on buildings, displayed on public buildings, 63% approval, 29% disapproval.

Daniel Woodruff: Yeah, this clearly had more support than perhaps the opponents thought that it did, and it didn't just deal with--I know the headline was always, "Pride flags can't be displayed in classrooms."

It also dealt with any political flags, so a MAGA flag would apply in this case as well.

And when you--when I sat in the hearings, when I listened to the debate, there was a lot of concern about disenfranchising different communities and the government playing a heavy hand.

But ultimately, the polling, I think, shows that there was more support for it than some may have thought.

Jason Perry: Ben, it's interesting because you start looking at the age groups, that's why I like looking at these cross tabs a little bit.

And of course, as you might expect, the older you get, the more supportive you were of this.

But even with the 18 to 35 year olds was at 56%.

What do you make of this?

Because there's a lot about the--what flags themselves, but what are you hearing from people about why that might be a little higher than some expected?

Ben Winslow: I think you could just expect that this is kind of following with the trends that we are seeing about support for President Trump's agenda at this point, you know, that what we're seeing just playing out in Utah, the super, super majority.

There's still a lot of problems that may emerge with this bill, including legal challenges related to government speech and freedom of speech, First Amendment rights.

You know, this bill isn't necessarily settled at this point, though, I would add.

And there is a growing number of people who do not like this, but the polling, yeah, I think this is reflective of sort of where Utah is overall.

Jason Perry: Would you say something Holly?

Holly Richardson: Well, just flags can be controversial, right?

So, including the brand-new Utah flag.

I mean, it's now a couple of years old, but that was controversial too, and who knew?

Jason Perry: Daniel, let's talk about this--the economy for this day.

I think you all have been watching this closely.

The American Legislative Exchange Council has just given Utah, for the 18th year in a row, the designation as the best economic outlook.

Daniel Woodruff: And it's a designation lawmakers and the governor and others love to tout, and we saw that this week and, excuse me, it's--Utah's economy is, by a number of indicators, incredibly strong.

I think a recent stat came out from the Kem Gardner Policy Institute showing that Utah leads the nation in salaries as well.

And so, this is one more thing, I think, that leaders who are in charge right now are going to hold up and say, "See, we're doing things right."

Jason Perry: Ben, put this in context.

The state of Utah is doing pretty well.

Talk about where legislators are on that designation, because they certainly are talking about it, but it does lead into some conversations about tariffs.

Ben Winslow: Right, they are absolutely over the moon about this ranking for the 18th year in a row.

At what point do you start asking ALEC if they'll retire the jersey?

Because of this, but it does--the governor at the same--in the same breath, at the same news conference that I was at, touting this, the governor announced that he had instructed his cabinet to start preparing recession plans, which is there are headwinds coming.

The speaker has said that in the interim they will be looking at a lot of things to keep the economy moving.

It's an acknowledgement of reality that with these tariff policies, which you hear the governor very publicly saying, "I'm not so sure this is going to work, but I hope it does," but you know, they have to prepare for reality in case this doesn't.

And the governor defends that, saying that we always prepare for a worst-case scenario.

So, you are seeing this--at the same time you've got this like, yeah, we have a strong economy and we've seen the latest unemployment reports, which still show Utah is doing very, very well, but you are also seeing signs of economic headwinds, and they are nervous about what could potentially come.

Holly Richardson: I think consumer confidence, too, is one of the metrics that's concerning, right?

It continues to drop, so not only nationally but in Utah as well.

And so, people are spending less, they're a little more nervous about that.

We certainly have a lot of things with the cost of housing and those types of things.

And I will say, there is another poll, it's WalletHub, and when we're looking at rankings for women in the country, we still rank 51st, below Puerto Rico, so.

Jason Perry: Why don't we get to tariffs?

Holly Richardson: Different metrics.

Jason Perry: Yes, I want to talk about these tariffs for just a moment because we did do some polling, this is "The Hinckley Institute," this is the "Deseret News" doing these polling questions together.

Daniel, this was sort of a tell of, like, the local versus the federal, and the long term versus the short term.

Because we first asked what people thought in Utah about the impact of the tariffs on the US economy, and this is where you see this polarization very clearly.

If you ask Utahns overall, 45% of them were positive about the tariffs, 52% were negative, but the disparity here is so interesting, is 71% of Utahns, of Republicans in Utah, were positive about the tariffs.

That's an 86% negative from Democrats.

This is both ends of the spectrum by a long ways.

Daniel Woodruff: And I think it depends on who you're listening to and what type of media you're consuming as well, right?

If you're in your polarized echo chamber of one or the other side, you're going to hear those things that are going to reinforce what you think about the tariffs positively or negatively.

That to say, there is a large amount of concern about the tariffs and the long-term economic impact that they are having and will have on this country, but I think, as I've observed and as we've talked to people, depending on the leaders and the voices that they are tuning into, that largely shapes their view of whether we are in a great state right now or if the world is about to end.

Jason Perry: One more question, and maybe you can give us the context here, Ben, because it was almost the same results, very similar when I talked to the impact of the tariffs on Utah's economy.

The overall was 44% positive, 51% negative.

Same disparities, 68% of Republicans were positive, 85% of Democrats were negative.

But it leads to this very interesting question here about the long-term impacts.

Short-term pain, will there be long-term positives?

And that's where we see this interesting--in Utah, 53% of Utahns saw long-term growth as a positive.

Only 47% saw a decline coming from these tariffs.

Ben Winslow: What we're seeing, and as part of, you know, when they announced the ALEC ranking, I went out to West Valley City and talked to people.

And what I observed is people are largely viewing the economy of how it's affecting them personally.

And I got it all over the map.

People were--I talked to people who are very happy.

You know, "Things are going great for me.

The economy is great here in Utah.

I like it."

I talked to a woman who said, "Economy's great.

I feel like things are good, except for I'm getting buried in housing costs."

And then I talked to somebody who said, "You know, things are rough for me right now.

Cost of everything is up.

You know, making ends meet is just getting harder and harder."

And I think that this is what you're seeing, is how people are feeling it directly impacting you, and it's across the map.

Jason Perry: And Holly, what do you--the people you're talking to, you're hearing from?

Because there is some pain now.

I mean, at what point from the people you're talking to are you seeing that long-term may be important, but it's right now I'm worrying about?

Holly Richardson: Sometimes I think to Ben's point, right?

It's your--how it's affecting you right now.

And so, sometimes I think we're not projecting enough in the future.

But one of the things that tariffs could impact are toys, right?

A lot of our toys come from China, and is that gonna impact Christmas?

Well, that's way away.

It feels like it's a long time away, and so maybe we don't feel that pain because we're not looking forward to that or we're not seeing that yet.

Some of it is businesses need economic--or they need some kind of assurance of stability, right?

And there's no stability right now, and so it's really hard to plan.

Do I expand my business, do I not?

I saw a business leader in Utah has gone directly to China to try to negotiate directly, right, so that their business is not as impacted.

I think it's those types of things.

I think it's going to play out over a period of months, maybe years, and we won't know the full impact until it really starts to trickle down.

Jason Perry: The uncertainty is giving opportunity, Ben, for some people to be kind of taking the national stage, including some high profile people coming to the state of Utah to talk exactly about this turmoil.

So, you were watching this one very closely.

Who just visited us last week here in the state of Utah?

Ben Winslow: Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Fight Oligarchy Tour, and that drew a massive crowd, 20,000.

They sold out the Huntsman Center, 15,000 there, 5000 outside, big crowds.

The resistance is awake and they are--.

Holly Richardson: And on a Sunday in Utah.

On a Sunday in Utah.

Ben Winslow: Yeah, exactly.

Holly Richardson: So yeah.

Jason Perry: Yeah, I want to show a clip really quickly because you gotta get a flavor for the commentary, and then I want to talk about the reasons why they're coming here to the state of Utah.

So, Daniel, let's give a comment after we watch this clip.

Bernie Sanders: They ain't gonna give you nothing.

They want it all.

And unless we stand up together and tell them, "Sorry, this country belongs to all of us, not just the billionaire class," unless we bring our people together, we will never achieve the goals that we want.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Because we know that a better world is possible and we are willing to do something about it.

And we're here because an extreme concentration of power, greed, and corruption is taking over this country like never before.

Jason Perry: Okay, go ahead, Daniel.

Daniel Woodruff: I think in the aftermath of the presidential election you saw Democrats struggling to respond to President Trump winning again and with the popular vote, as well as the electoral college.

And I think what you're seeing now is the Democratic Party, at least a wing of it, pushing forward a very simple populist message to try to galvanize resistance.

And I think we're gonna see this more and more.

There was that real uncertainty.

"How do we respond when more than half the country voted for President Trump to come back despite his past history and knowing about his criminal troubles?"

And now the Democratic Party, I think, is latching on to this message that they shared in Utah.

I think Holly made a great point earlier, and I'll echo that.

Does that mean Utah's becoming a democratic state?

No, but enough people care and show up to hear that message, which they did on Sunday at the Huntsman Center.

Jason Perry: Please--oh yeah, go ahead, Ben, and then Holly.

Ben Winslow: I was just gonna say, this--it's a pretty smart move, actually, to go to these red states where people feel isolated.

And what you are seeing is more and more people are showing up at these demonstrations against the Trump administration.

Then you have something like this, it is an effective strategy so that you can sort of coalesce people together.

The question becomes, do all of these people continue this action into election years, pushing candidates that align with their values and their beliefs?

Holly Richardson: So I think to elections in Utah, I don't know that it's going to significantly change the turnout in the Utah legislature or elsewhere, but maybe.

But what I do think is- it's doing is it's getting ready for midterms.

And I think the Democrats have found a message that is resonating, and that's kind of been the struggle.

So, typically we see midterm elections overturn, usually go the other--for the other party.

That's usually what happens in the midterms.

The honeymoon is over, so to speak.

So, we'll see if that happens in the United States, but I would say one of the reasons they're coming to these red states is because the elected representatives here are not holding these types of meetings.

Jason Perry: Is it resonating, though?

It's interesting, Democrats have, like, Bernie Sanders here in the state of Utah before, but it's interesting that Utah, not likely to shift colors, but it's just that message you see.

It's the message that comes from--.

Holly Richardson: And, you know, and I think there are--there certainly are seats that are swing seats in the state of Utah, and they could go back and forth, right?

And I think we even have now the rise of a third party with a particular legislator.

Dan Thatcher is now a member of the Forward party in Utah.

We may see some more of that.

Bernie Sanders is famously an independent, right?

And so, he really has latched on to--this is really getting to the heart of, especially of middle America, right?

They're--the really, really rich are not really paying taxes.

They have all kinds of loopholes.

But I have to pay my taxes, right, and you have to pay your taxes, but they don't have to pay theirs, and he hit on something that touches us.

Jason Perry: I want to get to one more issue, Daniel, because we're gonna hear about it this week, as sort of the fight with Harvard.

You know, the tax exempt status of Harvard University.

It's interesting because you look at whatever you think about that university and whatever is going on there, but our local officials are talking about an action there may have some consequences here.

Talk about what you're hearing from that, because even the governor's weighing in on that.

Daniel Woodruff: Well, it's just--if you go after Harvard in this case, could other universities like BYU become after--that's a bad phrase.

Could BYU be targeted in a future administration on the other side?

Something like that.

That's what's been touted around, is, "You've got to be careful that these norms don't get broken down because while your guy is doing this, the other guy could do that."

Jason Perry: So that was BYU, but it's also religious freedom generally or religious organizations, Ben?

Ben Winslow: Right, I mean, this could be broadened out, and it's sort of--the governor made reference to this during his monthly news conference here on PBS where he kind of warned, and he is very much an institutionalist person, but he warned about these breaking down of these norms in this way because it can backfire for--from you, you know?

On you, rather.

That this is--this--you may win this little battle, but you may lose something down the road, and you may not like that.

Jason Perry: That's gonna have to be the last comment.

Very insightful this evening, thank you.

And thank you for watching "The Hinckley Report."

This show is also available as a podcast.

Thank you for being with us.

We'll see you next week.

male announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is made possible in part by Merit Medical and by contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you, thank you.

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