Utah GOP Chairman James Evans tells UtahPolicy that since he “was cut off” by CNN anchor Carol Costello on a live broadcast last Thursday he has received a considerable amount of hate mail, even a death threat.
Evans, an African-American from the South, said he has been threatened before by Southern Democrats for his conservative political stands.
He said, since the CNN incident, he has traced one hateful voicemail left on his phone to a man from Houston. (You can listen to the voicemail here.)
At least the death threat and racial epithet didn’t come from a Utahn, something Evans is thankful for.
But, Evans adds, this has been a tough political year, and he still maintains that the national media has been unfair to GOP nominee Donald Trump and still refuses to treat allegations of wrongdoing by Bill and Hillary Clinton the same way they treat unsubstantiated claims of inappropriate personal behavior against Trump.
That was the comparison he was trying to make last Thursday on CNN.
He appeared on the Costello show with Utah Democratic Chairman Peter Corroon to talk about a new poll in Utah that showed Trump and Clinton tied at 26 percent each.
(Since that time two other polls have been released that show Trump ahead in the Utah race, once again. A third poll, released Monday, suggested the race was a three-way tie between Trump, Clinton and independent Evan McMullin.)
It had been a tough week for the Trump campaign in Utah after a sexist audiotape from 11 years ago revealed rude comments by Trump about women and how he can hit on them because he is famous.
Several top GOP Utah officeholders, including Gov. Gary Herbert and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, withdrew their endorsements of Trump, although the state GOP is officially standing with the nominee.
Anyway, when Evans brought up the story about Bill Clinton allegedly having a son with an African-American prostitute, Costello cut Evans off, saying he had no proof and then went to a commercial break.
Evans was criticized in Utah – including a column by me – over making the allegation on national TV and embarrassing the Utah Republican Party.
Evans stands by his original claim – that the national media won’t investigate and report on failings by Bill and Hillary Clinton like they do for GOP candidates, especially Trump.
“That was the point I was trying to make,” said Evans on Monday.
Evans says the GOP state office staff are taking new precautions after the threats of violence against him.
“But this is really nothing new; I’ve dealt with threats all my life by some Democrats from the South” who don’t like a Black man advocating conservative Republican principles, Evans said.
