Donald Trump has a 15-point lead over Democrat Hillary Clinton while independent Evan McMullin seemingly has stopped Libertarian Gary Johnson’s momentum in Utah.
The newest UtahPolicy.com survey finds Trump with 39% support and Clinton with 24%. Those numbers are virtually unchanged since July and June of this year.
Gary Johnson, who had surged to 16% support in July has stalled at 13%. That’s likely due to the entrance of independent candidate Evan McMullin into the race.
McMullin has 9% in the first time we included him in our poll. Constitution nominee Darrell Castle has 2% while Green Party candidate Jill Stein has dropped to 0%. 6% of respondents mentioned some other candidate while 7% say they’re undecided.
McMullin, who joined the race in August, has not pulled support away from Trump as he was hoping. Instead, it appears that McMullin’s 9% has come primarily from Utah voters who previously had named someone else as their preferred candidate.
McMullin is basing his campaign on denying both Trump and Clinton the 270 electoral votes they need to win the White House, which would throw the election to the House of Representatives, where he hopes he would prevail. But, to do that, McMullin needs to win electoral votes, and that means winning states. He’s nowhere near that goal in Utah.
The race in Utah is solidifying as Trump is slowly building a sizeable lead over Clinton. In June the real estate mogul had a 9-point lead. In August that lead had expanded to 12-points, and now it sits at 15. Utah Democrats had been making some noise that Clinton could challenge Trump in the Beehive state. Clinton has opened a field office in Utah and surrogates like Congresswoman Barbara Lee has campaigned for her here. Those efforts don’t seem to be making much of an impact among Utah voters.
Trump leads among both men and women in our survey. 41% of men and 37% of women pick Trump. Clinton is the pick of 23% of men and 24% of women. Johnson gets 14% support from men and 12% of women. McMullin is favored by 10% of women and 7% of men.
As you might expect, Trump has majority support from Republicans at 61%. Both Evan McMullin and Gary Johnson are hoping to siphon GOP support away from Trump, but they are seemingly splitting those Republican voters willing to look at another candidate as 11% of Republicans say they support Johnson, and 13% say they want McMullin.
Utah Democrats are much more united in their support for Hillary Clinton, with 82% of those particular voters picking the Democratic nominee. Curiously, 8% of Democrats said they would vote for Donald Trump.
More independent voters prefer Clinton than Trump (29-25%). McMullin is not making his case very well with this group as only 8% of independents say they’ll vote for him. Meanwhile, independents are the strongest group for Gary Johnson as he checks in with 17%.
Even though Trump does not have a majority in Utah, he is still poised to pick up the state’s six electoral votes as it simply takes a plurality to claim them.
The survey was conducted by Dan Jones & Associates from September 1-9, 2016 among 605 likely Utah voters. It has a margin of error +/- 3.98%.
