Former GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who is considering a run for the U.S. Senate in 2018, has high approval ratings among Utahns, a new UtahPolicy poll shows.
UPD’s pollster Dan Jones & Associates finds that 64 percent of Utahns have a “very” or “somewhat” favorable opinion of the former governor.
A quarter of Utahns (25 percent) disapprove of Huntsman; 8 percent have heard of him, but have no opinion, and 3 percent have never heard of him.
Huntsman won two gubernatorial elections, in 2004 and 2008.
Soon after being sworn in for the second time, Huntsman in the spring of 2009 accepted the offer by President Barack Obama, a Democrat, to become U.S. ambassador to China.
Huntsman resigned, and his then-Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert came into the governorship.
Jones’ new survey shows that Huntsman is more popular than either of Utah’s two U.S. Senators. Sen. Orrin Hatch has a 46-47 percent approval rating. And Sen. Mike Lee has a 51-33 percent approval rating.
UtahPolicy will publish other top officeholders’/political leaders’ ratings in future stories.
Huntsman is popular across the political spectrum:
- Republicans like him, 63-28 percent.
- Political independents (those who don’t belong to any political party) like him, 67-19 percent.
- And Democrats really like him, 70-19 percent.
The fact that Democrats like Huntsman more than Republicans is interesting, and could relate to several factors:
First, Obama is not well liked in Utah. And the fact that Huntsman, a Republican, resigned his post to serve in a Democrat’s administration – even if it was in a non-political post like ambassador – could hurt him.
Second, most Utah Republicans are Mormons. And before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage across the nation, Huntsman came out for gay marriage.
In any case, Huntsman still gets high marks from those who said they are “very active” in the LDS Church.
Among active Mormons Huntsman has a favorable rating of 64-28 percent.
Catholics like Huntsman, 64-17 percent; Protestants like him, 69-26 percent; and those who said they have no religion like him, 65-21 percent.
Huntsman, who called himself a conservative when he was governor but may be seen as more moderate by Utah standards, is not well liked among those who self-identified themselves to Jones as “very conservative:”
- Only 51 percent of that group approve of Huntsman.
- 41 percent disapprove of him.
- 6 percent have heard of Huntsman, but have no opinion of him.
- And 2 percent of “very conservative” Utahns have never heard of Huntsman.
Those who told Jones they follow the Tea Party philosophies are even more critical: Huntsman has a favorable rating of 42-45 percent among that group.
Of course, campaigns are meant to sway voters’ opinions.
And it may well be that if Huntsman gets in the 2018 U.S. Senate race, his favorables could suffer overall, and more specifically among certain demographic groups – like Republicans if he runs as an independent.
Jones polled 614 adults from Dec. 8-12. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.95 percent.
