Poll: Utah would support Democrat if Trump becomes Republican presidential nominee
According to a new Deseret News/KSL poll, if Donald Trump becomes the GOP nominee, the voters of Utah would opt for a Democratic candidate for the first time in over 50 years. Poll respondents said they would support either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders over Trump, though Clinton was only two points ahead of Trump in the poll, falling within the poll's margin of error (as opposed to the 11 points Sanders has over Trump). As many as 16 percent of respondents said they would skip the election, altogether, if Trump was the nominee. Either John Kasich or Ted Cruz would defeat the Democratic candidate if they were nominated.
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It's only one poll, but that didn't prevent it from shocking Chris Karpowitz, the co-director of Brigham Young University's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy. Said Karpowitz to the News, "I know it is early and these things can change. But the fact that a Donald Trump matchup with either Clinton or Sanders is a competitive race is a canary in a coal mine for Republicans."
Trump made news in heavily Mormon Utah on Friday by wondering aloud of former presidential candidate Mitt Romney was actually Mormon, though Trump would later suggest he was just implying that Romney wasn't very smart, because "The Mormons are very smart people. I know many Mormons." With Utah's caucuses set for Tuesday, FiveThirtyEight's current polling average has Cruz and Kasich way ahead of Trump, 52 and 28 percent, respectively, to Trump's 10 percent.
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