If Utah Democrats are hoping to make President Donald Trump a campaign issue in 2018, they’re going to have a difficult time making that case.
President Donald Trump’s approval ratings are holding steady across all four of Utah’s Congressional Districts according to the most recent UtahPolicy.com survey, which suggests that Utah Republicans are mostly immune to Trump’s constant courting of controversy.
The latest UtahPolicy.com poll finds 46% of Utahns approve of President Trump’s job performance, which is virtually identical to his share of the vote in the 2016 election (45.5%).
When you break those numbers down by Congressional District, Trump’s approval rating hasn’t changed there either.
- Trump won CD1 in 2016 with 49.7% of the vote. Our latest poll finds that 50% of voters in that district approve of Trump’s job performance (no change).
- President Trump carried CD2 in 2016 with 46%. The most recent survey finds Trump with a 49% job approval there (a slight improvement).
- Trump won CD3 with 47% in 2016. His approval there now is 50%, which is an uptick.
CD4 is the only place where Trump has negative approval ratings (62% disapprove).
While that may seem like good news to Democrats hoping to turn Trump into a campaign issue against Rep. Mia Love, it’s really no change from 2016. Trump only won CD4 with 39% of the vote, while Love carried her District with 53.8%.
All of the numbers suggest that Trump will hardly be an albatross for any Republican running for Congress in 2016, and any attempts to hang him around the neck of GOP candidates could be futile. Especially in the case of Mia Love.
Love outperformed Trump in CD4 by 15 points in 2016. This was after the Access Hollywood tape came to light. In the middle of one of the most contentious presidential elections in a decade, voters did not punish Love for Trump’s controversies. It probably helped Love that she took great pains to distance herself from Trump, announcing she would not vote for the GOP presidential candidate that year. Tying Love to Trump is going to be a tough case to make, especially since she didn’t vote for the GOP nominee in 2016.
CD4 is rated as a “solid Republican” seat by the Cook Partisan Voting Index, which gives the seat a +13 GOP advantage. Love outperformed that number by 2-percent in 2016.
This year’s 3rd CD special election also should not be a referendum on Trump’s time in the White House, especially since Trump is at 50% approval there, too.
Trump’s troubles in CD4 give Love more political room to be independent of the president and take positions that may be contrary to his. Voters clearly didn’t punish her in 2016 for distancing herself from Trump, and they probably won’t do so in 2018, especially since a strong Democratic candidate hasn’t stepped forward so far to challenge her. CD4 voters have been able to divorce themselves from the notion that Republicans are tied at the hip to President Trump.
The same goes for CD 1, 2, and 3.
- Rob Bishop won CD1 by 39.5%, better than Trump’s 27-point margin.
- Chris Stewart won CD2 by 27.7%, 13-points better than Trump’s margin of victory.
- Jason Chaffetz triumphed by 46.9% in 2016, more than doubling Trump’s winning margin.
The astonishing lack of movement in Trump’s numbers since the 2016 election nearly a year ago suggests that his supporters haven’t abandoned him, and probably aren’t going to anytime soon. That’s good news for Republicans running for Congress, and bad news for Democrats hoping to make Trump an issue next year.
