GOP Attorney General Sean Reyes holds a healthy lead over the two fellow Republicans seeking to unseat him this year, a new UtahPolicy.com/KUTV 2News poll finds.
And Democrat Greg Skordas is well ahead of his intraparty challenger, Kevin Probasco, as the Democratic State Convention approaches, Y2 Analytics’ survey shows.
Reyes took office after former AG John Swallow resigned seven years ago. Now Swallow is trying for a surprise comeback, after being found not guilty in a number of felony charges in a high-profile 2017 jury trial.
But not too many GOP voters are interested today in Swallow, Y2 finds.
The numbers among those who told Y2 they are registered Republicans and likely to vote in the late-June primary election:
- Reyes gets 54 percent of those voters.
- Utah County Attorney David Leavitt gets 31 percent support.
- And Swallow comes in third at 15 percent support.
If any of the three get 60 percent or more of the 4,000 GOP state delegates in the April 25 convention, then he wins the nomination outright.
If not, then the top two-vote-getters — likely Reyes and Leavitt — will move on to the primary election.
If the delegates are any reflection of rank-and-file Utah Republicans, then clearly Reyes has a shot at winning the nomination at convention — especially since Leavitt has announced he has the coronavirus and probably isn’t doing much campaigning among the delegates now — certainly not face-to-face.
Swallow stunned Utah’s political community when, on the last day of candidate filing, he jumped into the race.
While he was found not guilty at trial, a special investigation by the Republican-controlled Utah House found that Swallow had “hung a For Sale sign” out on the door of the Utah Attorney General’s office during his election (he was then serving as deputy AG to Mark Shurtleff, who later had a dozen felony charges dropped against him).
In any case, according to the poll it doesn’t look like Swallow will be advancing from the state Republican Party convention.
On the Democratic side, Skordas leads with 72 percent of those who said they are likely to vote in the Democratic primary election.
So, like Reyes, Skordas, a well-known criminal defense attorney who has run for the office before, looks like he can win the nomination in the Democrat’s state convention.
The Attorney General’s office is the last statewide office held by a Democrat, when two different AGs were from the minority party back in the 1990s.
Utah Policy.com is partnering with KUTV 2News and Y2 Analytics and will be providing polling results on a regular basis throughout the election season.
