As a political junkie, you probably know who State Auditor John Dougall is. Well, you’re way ahead of most Utahns.
A new Dan Jones & Associates poll finds a majority of Utahns (55%) say they’ve never heard of Dougall. 12% say they have a favorable view of him while 9% see him unfavorably. Another 23% say they have no opinion.
Compare those numbers to the election results from last November, when Dougall ran away with the election, winning with 63% of the vote. That either speaks to the power of incumbency or the built-in advantage of running as a Republican.
Dougall also has barely campaigned since deciding to run for the job in 2011. Dougall defeated incumbent Republican Auston Johnson that year in a primary, then rolled to a win in November. That also has contributed to Dougall’s near non-existent public profile.
Dougall has shifted the focus of the Auditor’s office since taking over, launching performance audits of state agencies. Some of those probes have uncovered financial irregularities which have led, in some cases, to criminal investigations. Most recently, Dougall’s office discovered that an employee for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality falsified receipts to steal $140,000.
Even in his own party Dougall is relatively unknown.
- 53% of Utah Republicans say they have never heard of him. 16% of GOP voters have a positive opinion of him while 7% view him negatively.
- 62% of Utah Democrats have never heard of Dougall. 8% have a positive opinion while 11% see him negatively.
- 54% of independent voters are blissfully unaware of Dougall. 9% see him favorably while 12% have a negative opinion.
The Dan Jones & Associates survey was conducted March 22-29, 2016 among 844 registered Utah voters with a margin of error +/- 3.37%.
