There’s not much drama left in Utah’s 2016 election.
The only questions left are whether Donald Trump or Evan McMullin will carry the state’s six electoral votes if Doug Owens can win his rematch with Mia Love and will Democrats pick up seats in the Utah Legislature.
Following are my predictions for how Election Day 2016 will play out.
I’m fairly sure Donald Trump will carry Utah this year, but will ultimately lose to Hillary Clinton. McMullin will finish second in Utah while Hillary Clinton will be in 3rd place.
Here’s my final predicted electoral map:
Click the map to create your own at Republicans will dominate the statewide and Congressional races. That’s not much of a shocker. Mia Love should beat Democrat Doug Owens much more easily than she did in 2014.
Picking races in the Utah Legislature is a bit dicier. We start with 22 seats that are unopposed. That’s the easy part.
But, I do think that Democrats are poised to make some minimal gains this year in the House.
The two seats most likely to flip control are HD 34 where Karen Kwan should win her second attempt to win this seat and HD 45 which Christine Passey should take away from Rep. Bruce Cutler after losing to him by a handful of votes in 2014.
I also think Rep. Sophia DiCaro (HD 31) is likely to lose her seat this year. Many in the GOP consider her to be a rising star within the party, but this district is traditionally a Republican one. She barely beat Rep. Larry Wiley in 2014 (who was an extremely weak candidate). Liz Weight has been working very hard to put this district back in Democratic hands, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she does.
If Democrats have a very good day on Tuesday, Rep. Jeremy Peterson could be in real trouble in HD 9. Democrats have made no secret of their desire to make inroads in Weber County. There’s an excellent chance this Ogden seat could tip to the Democrats.
But, it’s not all roses for Democrats. Rep. Susan Duckworth (HD 22) has fended off challenge after challenge from Republicans in the past, but she may not do it this time. Republicans say Jaime White has been putting maximum effort into defeating Duckworth and she’ll either accomplish her goal or come really, really close.
At the end of the day, I expect Democrats to win four seats from Republicans in the House and lose one, giving them a net gain of +3.
That would mean 15 Democrats and 60 Republicans in the House after Tuesday.
In the Senate, there could be a surprise in SD 6 where Democrat Celena Milner is challenging incumbent Sen. Wayne Harper, but a pickup for the Democrats would be very unexpected.
Full predictions are below.
