Utah Republicans say Donald Trump has the best chance of winning their party’s presidential nomination, even though he finished third here in the party caucuses, and Trump may not have the 1,237 delegates votes needed when he enters the national convention.
Most Utah Democrats believe Hillary Clinton will be their party’s nominee, even though she finished a distant second here in party caucuses.
A plurality of Utahns think Clinton will be our next president, even though she trails all GOP candidates here except for Trump.
Those are the results of a new UtahPolicy poll conducted by Dan Jones & Associates – recognized as Utah’s premier pollster.
The results may not be very surprising.
But they show Utahns are clearly not with the majority of both party and regular voters across the nation.
Jones finds:
- 41 percent of Utah GOP voters say Trump will be their party’s nominee after the July national Republican convention in Cleveland.
- 37 percent said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will be their party’s nominee.
- Only 6 percent believe it will be Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
- Even though Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders beat Clinton more than two-to-one in the March Democratic Party caucuses here in Utah, 74 percent of Beehive State Democrats say Clinton will be their party’s nominee.
- Only 23 percent of Utah Democrats say Sanders will end up the nominee – perhaps facing the tough reality that Clinton is way ahead in party delegates.
When you ask all Utah voters who will win the presidency next November, 37 percent say it will be Clinton; 17 percent say it will be Cruz; 9 percent say it will be Trump, and 13 percent say it will be someone else; and 22 percent don’t even have a guess.
The fact that so few Utahns want Trump or Clinton to be president could have down-ticket implications should the final election end up to be a Clinton-Trump match-up.
Time will tell if Utah voters will just stay home next November, or will show up to the polls but not vote in the presidential race.
Jones polled 600 Utahns from March 23 to April 5. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.
