Rep. Jason Chaffetz is virtually assured of winning his fifth term in Congress as he has a nearly insurmountable lead over his Democratic opponent.
Chaffetz leads Democrat Stephen Tryon by 47-points ahead of election day, 71-24%.
Those numbers are virtually identical to our previous UtahPolicy.com survey conducted in August. At that time, Chaffetz had a 69-23% lead over Tryon.
In fact, Chaffetz is poised to pull nearly the same percentage as he did in 2014 when he romped to an easy victory over hapless Democratic nominee Brian Wonnacott. Two years ago Chaffetz won 72-23%.
Chaffetz winning re-election in his district is as close to a sure thing as you can get. The lowest vote percentage he won in his previous four elections was 65.6% in 2008, which was his first run for office. Following that, he won with 72%, 77%, and 73%.
That’s a remarkable streak of consistency for Chaffetz, especially since Chris Cannon, who Chaffetz defeated for the GOP nomination in 2008, only got above 65% once in the four prior elections.
The Dan Jones & Associates survey was conducted October 12-20, 2016. That was before Chaffetz went back on his vow to not support Donald Trump. As you’ll remember, Chaffetz was the first member of Congress to un-endorse the GOP nominee after a videotape of him bragging about sexually assaulting women surfaced. Just 19-days later, Chaffetz said he would vote for Trump without endorsing him because he’s better than Hillary Clinton.
Tryon won the endorsement of the Salt Lake Tribune, but that’s pretty much the only thing he’s going to win this year. Chaffetz is crushing him in nearly every demographic.
- Men pick Chaffetz over Tryon 73-23%
- Women favor Chaffetz 69-24%
- Every age group we surveyed prefers Chaffetz by a large margin. The closest was voters between the age of 25-34, and that group still supports Chaffetz by 14-points.
Tryon only wins the support of 88% of Democrats, but 8% of Utah’s minority party says they plan to vote for Chaffetz in November.
Independent voters break for Chaffetz by nearly a 2-1 margin (61-33%).
212 likely voters in Utah’s 3rd CD were interviewed for the survey with a margin of error +/- 6.73%.
