It’s easy to forget how many prominent Republicans there are in Utah or, in Mitt Romney’s case, who are very influential in Utah. There’s former senator Bob Bennett and the two sitting senators, Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee. There’s former governors Jon Huntsman Jr. and Mike Leavitt. There’s Utah’s current governor, Gary Herbert. As a group, they seem pretty disenchanted with Donald Trump. If a recent Y2 Analytics poll is correct, mainstream Utahns are feeling the same lack of enthusiasm. Apparently, only 11% are planning to vote for The Donald.
There’s also the other poll everyone is talking about today. That’s the Deseret News/KSL poll that shows Trump losing Utah to Bernie Sanders 37%-48% and losing to Hillary Clinton (within the margin of polling error) by a 36%-38% margin.
It’s doubtful that Trump helped himself by traveling to Salt Lake City and asking the crowd if Mitt Romney is really a Mormon.
I don’t put a lot of stock in the Deseret News poll, but it seems clear that Trump has some kind of Mormon problem. It’s probably his complete lack of moral rectitude the explains it, but your guess is as good as mine.
Elephant in the room not being discussed:
“…Trump losing Utah to Bernie Sanders 37%-48% and losing to Hillary Clinton (within the margin of polling error) by a 36%-38% margin.”
How many of these kinds of polls will it take for the Democrats to realize that the only way to save us from Trump is by nominating Bernie? Now that Hillary has piled up delegates from conservative states that will never vote Democratic anyway, she can now lose the states that more likely would vote Democratic in the general unless the Democrats do something really stupid, like override a Bernie majority pledged delegate decision, no matter how small that majority turns out to be.
If we vote for Hillary to save us from Trump, who can we vote for to save us from Hillary?
How many of these kinds of polls will it take for the Democrats to realize that the only way to save us from Trump is by nominating Bernie?
That’s not a very good way of looking at it. Though I do wonder what that says over all, and of the Democratic Party.
These polls are worthless this far out. Remember when Dukakis was way up on GHWB? The Republicans haven’t even begun slicing and dicing Bernie. Hillary’s been taking flak for years.
The only thing Hillary has to run on is the fantasy that she is the stronger candidate against Trump. It has been claimed here that electability is the most important issue. So, you want to ignore the polls? Maybe you should wait until after the primary to make up your mind. What could go wrong?
Hillary is a weak Establishment candidate in a year of revolt with a national negative favorability rating, without the under 30 vote plus under investigation by the FBI, not what I would call a strong position.
Hillary’s Establishment allies are already whining that Bernie should either drop out or concentrate on Trump, leaving her and the big banks alone. Trump is going to take Bernie’s popular issues and mock her with them in ways that gentleman Bernie Sanders would never do. She’s going to lose, not because of the positions she has suddenly switched to but because of the things she has already done and supported in the past. If she can’t answer nice Bernie, how is she going to answer the absolute king of insults on the same issues, bark at him? She has no creditable answers.
What are people angry about in this year of revolt? You guessed it; free trade. What is her answer when the Clinton dynasty trade deals are directly responsible the destruction of the middle class? That won’t work on Bernie.
Yeah, I want to disregard the polls. This far out it is mere noise.
Not the primary polls mind you, the presidential polls. People say a lot 6 months before the election and its all cheap. 4 weeks before the election? Yeah, I’ll believe most of them. I wouldn’t believe Rasmussen if they said the sun rose in the east.
HRC does not have ONLY the electability argument. There are many of us that prefer her to Bernie. Its not necessarily that we don’t like Bernie … we LIKE HRC.
The “liking” of HRC is the baffling part. Particularly after the disgusting speech she gave today.
If HRC is so likable and electable, then why didn’t she win the Democratic 2008 primary?
To be fair, Obama is more likeable then HRC. A better point would be: If HRC is so likeable and electable why did she need so much more money, all the state DEM party machines, 80+% of the superdelegates and highest profile DEMs endorsing her, and DEM affiliated institution endorsing her against an old DEM-Socialist Jew that had name recognition in single digits when he entered the race?
I don’t think Trump will win. I just don’t think it will be as big a blowout as people think, assuming that it’s a Clinton/Trump contest.
I don’t disagree. I have no idea what Trumps final share will be. I’m pretty sure there won’t be enough POC to shake a stick at and I doubt that his appeal to white people will generate more votes than he now has. If I had to bet, I’d bet that D share in the south goes down and the D share elsewhere goes up.
The final result in MS doesn’t matter too much because NOONE with a D after the name will win MS. Same goes in reverse for NY, CA and MA.
“Thinking” doesn’t work well in evaluating a phenomenon that hasn’t been seen before. How many “thought” they way to declarations that Trump would fall when he said X, Y, or Z and how many projected that he would be out months ago and others projected that once the voting began in IA and NH that he would be gone?
Once I got beyond viewing him as a ridiculous and improbable candidate (if not before then with the first GOP debate), I sensed that he wasn’t going to go down quickly or easily. In part because the other candidates were no better or worse and boring in comparison to Trump. Right now were watching Trump in primary campaign mode and closing the deal with the faction of the GOP that he needs to secure the nomination. Brand loyalty for that faction will carry him through the general election and therefore, that faction won’t need tending for much longer.
Then he’ll be free to swing into general election mode and nobody knows what we’ll see from him then. So, no way to “think” it through. However, the raw demographics of the electorate are so far from favoring him that it appears irrational to conclude anything other than a GE loss for him.
This primary election continues to be full of surprises and anomalies, so I try not to think in the traditional sense, nor make assumptions. However, it’s very difficult not to do so.
Leaving aside the issue that the Wurlitzer is just barely starting up on Bernie, tying in Utah is quite good enough for the Democrats to win the Presidency.
Wouldn’t use the head-to-head general election polls as an argument this far out. Projecting from a poll of people imagining what they may or may not do in November under several different scenarios, all of which are comparative, is way too mushy.
What people think today about each of the candidates is a more stable measure that principally “electability” primary voters can use. So far, women seem determined to nominate the candidate that men hate the most and men seem determined to nominate the candidate that women hate the most.
Maybe. Then whose determined to defeat both candidates who men and women hate most: Martians? Or will the Martians get on board for Bernie Sanders?
Billmon today:
What is exactly the same today as then (other than Billmon and I have the same feeling) is those on the left side of the aisle that absolutely refuse to admit any facts/evidence and are unwilling to hear out rational arguments. They no more own the fact that they allowed themselves to be duped than by a freaking idiot like GWB than do all the Senate DEMs (that’s assuming that their excuse is that they too were duped, but some had a vested interest in such a war).
Interesting information at DownWithTyranny this a.m.
In states, like Mississippi, where Clinton blew out Sanders, voter turnout was down close to fifty percent. In states where Bernie won turnout was up, in some cases quite a bit.
While Clinton supporters point to the South (where Hillary got high percentages of not only the black voters but also similar percentages from white voters) as a justification for her nomination, the numbers tell another story.
In states where Bernie has done well, it’s not only new young voters, it’s also a lot of independents. In states where independent voters could vote in the either primary in the primaries where Trump won they flooded to him (with the exception of Ohio), in states where independents swung left Sanders won them. These groups, disaffected Dems, young Dems, and independents (many of whom left the Democratic Party since the 90s), will not vote for Clinton. She’ll get a few, but certainly not the independents and those voters who see her as a continuation of samo samo.
Of course, every national poll shows that Hillary is less likeable than everyone but Trump. This is reinforced by every poll showing that Sanders beats every Republican by substantial margins while Hillary loses to Cruz and is in a statistical tie with Trump.
When we are offered the nice try, Bernie, now get out of the race from the McCaskills of the Dem Party, the official, “centrist” Democratic people, they are saying that they would rather lose with Hillary than to win with Sanders. And if and when she loses in the national election the smug “centrists” will blame it on those kids and radicals who didn’t show up for Hillary. There’s a reason why they won’t show up for Hillary, and not acknowledging it now means that the Dems, not necessarily the Repubs, will continue their decline as directed by DWS and Clinton.
Isn’t it time to push the line that the Democratic Party in the person of Hillary and Bill Clinton ‘did not and will not ever turn out for them?’ All this DNC crap cuts two ways. ‘It’s the fault of the “centrists” because they ignored the kids and radicals. An antiquated blog abbreviation says everything: LOL!
I think the Independent voters who are not former Republicans but disgusted Democrats are the real wild card for the general election. I could see them out for Bernie in numbers to make a real difference but not for Hillary.
“If Hillary Clinton manages to beat Bernie Sanders, the early primaries have already revealed that there’s only one strategy for the general election against a Republican, be it Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, or Ted Cruz: Scorch the earth.”
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/03/the-democrat-establishment-plan-for-a-three-front-anti-trump-
republican-splitting-anti-left-campaign.html
OMG!
Confirmation for Strether’s first point — HRC writing off the DFHs —
Slate – Hillary Clinton’s AIPAC Speech Was a Symphony of Craven, Delusional Pandering
From the author, Michelle Goldberg, a month and a half ago, Why One Woman Feminist is Voting for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders.
Ignore the source — in fact don’t bother reading the text — watch the video.
In Bill Clinton’s words — we have to get beyond the “awful legacy of the last eight years and the seven before that when we were practicing trickle down economics …”
He apparently meant “…the last seven years and the eight before that…” Tres riche.
I like it better the way he said it. He said the last 8 years and the 7 years before that. If he went back further it would to his administration. Believe the man.
Either way — he limited it to fifteen years. Last year eight years would be 2008-20016 and the seven before that would be 2001-2007 which doesn’t correspond to either Obama or GWB’s time in office or Congress.
It’s rich because he’s trying to sell the notion that the only break in trickle down economics since 1981 was his administration which is hogwash.
GWB, the 43rd President of the United States served from 2001 to 2009. I will continue to watch this when I need a good laugh. Maybe having Bill on the trail is not so bad after all.
I agree with you about how rich the part is about his administration not being about trickledown economics. Did he not listen to what Al From was telling him about the neo-liberal movement he was supposed to lead?
Bill doesn’t seem to be hurting her but may not be helping either. OTOH, he could be closing the deal for her with voters over the age of 30. Could have been her winning margin in MA.
The polls at this point are not reliable. Hillary is the only one of the candidates who has already been thoroughly vetted. There are no more skeletons in that closet. People already know what they think of her, and her numbers should remain stable. But Trump hasn’t yet been attacked by a determined campaign. We haven’t heard much yet about his lawsuits, his immigrant wives, his lack of financial talent, or his ties to the mob. His supporters won’t care, but the moderates in the country will, and his numbers should drop some of these stories becomes headline news. Unfortunately, Bernie also has not yet been viciously attacked. Some of the things which we don’t mind, like his visits to Russia and Nicaragua, will be a problem for some voters. And god only knows what sort of garbage the GOP will simply make up. His numbers will almost certainly drop as these stories, true or not, get into the public imagination.
Bernie may be a better general election candidate than Hillary. He might not. Unfortunately, these polls aren’t actually able to answer that question at this time.
IMO, Hillary has not been thoroughly vetted. In 2008 and 2016 she ran/is running against Democrats. The only Republican Hillary has run against was Rick Lazio in the 2000 New York senate race. Lazio came into the New York Senate race 5 months before election day. (Rudy Giuliani dropped out.)
I think what those who say that HRC has already been vetted mean is that had there been anything in her life or record that was negative enough for her to lose in a primary or general election, one of her opponents, the GOP, and/or the media would have already been on it. That sort of misses the concept that what would disturb a national general electorate or disturb the electorate in 2016 doesn’t vary from who and what existed in the past.
For example, who would have predicted that questions or allegations about something from 1970 could hurt a multi-term Senator running for POTUS in 2004? While it’s doubtful that there anything in her past before 2001 that could be fleshed out and suddenly resonate with the electorate in 2016, it’s not impossible. (A handicap for Gore in 2000 with young voters was Tipper’s rock-music censorship effort from over a decade earlier.)
This is what I keep trying to explain to people. Numerous political scientists, along with folks like Nate Silver, have pointed this out, yet folks on the blogs still insist on banging on about meaningless GE polls.
The only two people in the race who’re well-known by the general public are Clinton and (far less so) Trump. The data on others is fantasyland stuff, because none of them have been defined one way or the other for the people in the middle who’ll decide the election.
The people who’ll decide the election don’t even start paying attention until the conventions at the earliest anyway.
My sense is that Mormons are really sensitive to scapegoating of minorities. Sounds odd given how much bigotry has been a part of the church’s history, but I have a sense that Mormons know that they could be next. So many fundamentalists Christians see them as yet another manifestation of “the other” and Trump’s such a wildcard.
For many white people, their sense of privilege is such that there’s no awareness that their own rights could be infringed. Mormons know otherwise.
I don’t think they COULD be next, it’s more like they WOULD be next.
.
Not that I care about such things, but doctrinally speaking, their religion is a straight-up heresy of Christianity. I suppose there’s only so long that something like that can be ignored by rightwing fundamentalists.
I think The Donald has had an negative effect on the vast missionary work of the Mormons. I wonder if the the Mexicans are once again pushing the Mormons out?
And the evidence for this assertion is….?
I’ve had a feeling Trump wouldn’t play well in Utah or a lot of areas in the interior West (which also have sizable Mormon populations), but I’ve been struggling to pin down why I think that, exactly.
Some of it is probably just temperament. I don’t think the big dick-swinging New York Libertine shtick plays well with Mormons, who in my experience are usually very conservative politically but fairly mild personalities (Hatch and Romney being decent examples).
Some of it may also be fear of what Trump is drumming up, knowing they’re a religious minority that much of the far right views as a bunch of cultists, even they largely agree on issues.
It also looks like there’s a divide over Trump between East and West. East of (say) Kansas City, Trump’s fairly dominant. Once you get out into the Plains and Mountain West, not so much.
Granted, he won Nevada, but Nevada’s culturally kind of an oddball state. He’ll probably do well — not as well, but well — in Arizona for similar reasons. But I think he’s going to struggle through most of the interior west of the Mississippi.
…adding:
The fact that Trump’s attacking the first Mormon nominee of a major party — not an unimportant achievement to Mormons, I’d imagine — probably isn’t helping his cause there either.
And Hillary can only poll within the margin of error with this going on? We should worry.
I don’t know if you’re being snarky or not, but I wouldn’t put much stock in either poll result, because (1) general election polls don’t mean anything this far out and (2) Utah is so overwhelmingly Republican that it won’t matter.
Trump’s going to carry Utah if he’s the nominee. He’s just not going to carry it in the primary.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Bernie beats Trump by more than 10 points while the best Hillary can do is a tie within the margin of error.
Former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt is worried:
https:/www.rawstory.com/2016/03/shocking-trump-is-such-a-gop-nightmare-he-puts-utah-in-play-for-the
-first-time-in-50-years
I’m not saying it’s impossible, of course.
I’d caution, though, that it’s only one poll seven months before the election.
And, as a practical matter, if the Dems are even in the ballpark in Utah, the election’s over anyway.
Mormons may be kind of a special case with Trump. I just doubt it, and I’d certainly expect him to run weaker there than (say) Kasich. But I’d expect that everywhere.
It’s over if he’s running against Bernie. Hillary could lose this one and many others just like it. Other Republicans beat Hillary in far too many places. There too many polls like this to be ignored.
Utah primary is June 26, the one that counts if you want to win in seven months.
This argument is dumb, and was used by HRC supporters in 2008 (especially “But she’s winning in blue states!” which I also see Sanders’ supporters using). In general the “electability” argument should be tossed into the trash — unless both candidates are ideologically similar.
You either believe in your political ideology and the policies that stem from it, or you don’t. If the public isn’t with you then you need to convince them you’re correct.
I’m glad a lot of people are saying they prefer Clinton to Sanders beyond issues of electability, frankly. Then we can discuss our differences as they are as opposed to neoliberals hiding behind a bullshit argument of who and who is not “electable”.
Yes, electability is the lowest level of political thought/engagement. Under the right circumstances at the right time, almost anyone is electable.
Electability may be a dumb argument but it’s the main foundation Hillary used to scare oppressed people in the Deep South afraid of the party of the white man. The only other thing she has is; vote for me because Trump is so much worse, something some people are starting to no longer take as a given. The rest of her positions are things `borrowed’ from Bernie then converted into bullshit half measures.
I really wish we could talk about what’s wrong with neo-liberalism but then that would indict most of the Democratic Establishment, the last thing Hillary will ever talk about. The best hope for a future for the Democratic Party is nominating and electing Bernie so we can begin the beginning of the end of neo-liberalism. This is going to be more difficult and take longer than getting rid of the Blue Dogs but we can do it if we take Bernie’s advice to stand together.
There is no question that the corrupt brand of neo-liberalism the Clinton dynasty represents must be defeated if the Democratic Party is to survive. I agreed with Bernie that the best way to win this fight is to do it from inside the Democratic Party. We still have a good chance win a majority of pledged delegates now that the conservative states are behind us with Hillary continuing to say and do stupid things exposing her weakness in the general where electability is everything. Anything can still happen.
If the unthinkable does happen and Hillary wins the nomination we must face the reality that the Democratic Party is simply too corrupt to allow it to be reformed, especially if Hillary uses super delegates to win the nomination after losing a majority of pledged delegates. For the movement to continue it would be necessary for us to take the advice of the `real’ socialist forming a separate Progressive Party. We could run real progressive congressional candidates in 2018 the DNC would be powerless to oppose.
If Bernie is not nominated our best shot would be to run and win in a three way White House race in 2020. As painful as it might be, would we want to run against a stronger or weaker third way neo-liberal Democratic Party? If any Republican wins the 2016 race both the Republicans and Democrats will be in a weakened state for different reasons by 2020. This would be a painful path for us and the world but could result in a real political revolution. So what’s it going to be; the hard way or the easy way?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/how-the-peoples-party-pre_b_9518144.html
I’m old enough to remember when a “Christian” was someone who was polite, restrained, sheltered, had a strong moral compass, and really did “do unto others as he would have them do unto him”. I had irreconcilable differences with their beliefs, but I admired them, and in many ways strove to be more like them. American Christians returned to a militant, bigoted, Crusades mentality in the 1980s, but a great number of Mormons (the non-polygamist compound, non-Bundy variety) still line up with my earlier description. Talk to one of those goofy young guys in suits and ties on their “missions” and you’ll see. A whole lot of Mormons – in spite of their conservatism – are straight out of Leave it to Beaver. I would be shocked if Trump weren’t trounced in Utah.
Kind of touching, leaving it to Beaver, if it were not for the fabulous wealth of the Mormons as a whole and their religious organization. They positioned right in the middle of the financial ruling class even though they know how to maintain a modest demeanor. In relative terms their wealth is completely out of synch with their small numbers.
Totally agree.
The Mormons I know really do follow the religion pretty faithfully. And they’re pretty nice on the whole.
So that fact they’d not vote for a pig like Trump is very much in keeping.
As for why southern evangelicals ARE voting for Trump, well, there’s an interesting thing there, isn’t it?
As to your question regarding southern evangelicals, IMO, Trump’s “jobs and economic security” talk was heard first.
I was kind of thinking that the whole “blaming the minorities” thing was the bit the got them going for Trump…
I submit the bulk of their history suggests that was never true until secular thinking and government arrived to keep them in check. Hell, that wasn’t even true of the character for whom the religion is named for oftentimes.
I’d agree on Mormons anecdotally, in that my experience with them has almost always been pleasant. But I don’t think the Mormons are, or ever have been, representative of the larger Christian community. In fact, I think the Mormons would tell you that. They didn’t just up and decide to go to Utah for no reason, after all.
What the current Utah polling does point to is that what Trump is doing now, (like going to Utah and asking crowd is Romney really is a Mormon) is not working. Whether they perceive it as poor judgment, arrogance, or maybe even mocking the voters themselves, it does beg the question of whether the Utah polls are canaries telling us that Trump has hit his ceiling.
Seems like a big historical blind spot here about the LDS Church.
The Mormons migrated to Utah in the first place because they were being persecuted in Illinois and Missouri. Joseph Smith was dragged out of a jail cell and lynched. SO yes, Mormons are very sensitive to the business of persecution. The governor is on record welcoming Syrian refugees. The Deseret News, whose polling results Booman distrusts, has taken an editorial stance against Trump. The Mormon community may be conservative in many ways, but Trump doesn’t fit their way of thinking about the world.
Think whatever you like of their theology, but that’s irrelevant.
The Mormons migrated to Utah in the first place because they were being persecuted in Illinois and Missouri.
How does that make them unique? Many, including Mitt’s great-grandparents, fled to from Utah to Mexico because they “felt” persecuted by the USG. Overlooked in this mess is that Smith sent missionaries to the UK and Europe shortly after the “golden plates” became lost. Not so many in the US signed on to this new weird religion, but converts were easier to find abroad. Wonder why that was?
Marie3, if you want to argue about golden plates and converts to the LDS church, I suggest you find an LDS MEMBER to argue with. I’m not. I do have Mormon friends and coworkers. Kind of hard not to know Mormons if one lives in the western US.
The only GOP governor to reject fear mongering about refugees is a Mormon. If this fact is not significant to you–and note that he alluded to Mormon history in his statements–then with all due respect, I think you’re being at a minimum unfair.
As I noted in another thread, there is a corrosive sort of cynicism in political commentary that regards all human interactions as involving a quid pro quo, and all statements of principle as manipulative nonsense. If you go down that rabbit hole, it’s a difficult climb out.
Didn’t note that about the Gov of Utah, but is it so uncommon for a governor to back away from something supported by their peer circles? George Ryan (IL) and Nikki Haley (SC)? Could Gov Herbert just feel more inclined to be humanitarian? How many groups in the US today can trace back to ancestors that came here to escape religious persecution? Why would it be any more profound for Mormons than those of other religious faiths?
If it were so prominent among Mormons, why no support for it among any of the Utah Mormon congressional reps? And those two groups helping in Utah aren’t Mormon.
btw I’ve known many Mormons — school and work. Generally very nice personally.