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Love or McAdams? Projection suggests McAdams could win in a squeaker

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The entire state is on pins and needles waiting for the outstanding ballots in the Mia Love/Ben McAdams race to be counted. If current trends hold, McAdams could eke out a razor-thin victory according to projections provided to UtahPolicy.com.

According to calculations by David May, McAdams is favored to win with 50.84% of the vote to Love’s 49.16%.

Please note these are simply projections based on current trends and not meant to be predictive.

Here’s how the numbers might break down:

There are 4 counties covered by CD4.

  • Salt Lake County, where McAdams has 54.95% and Love has 45.05%
  • Utah County, where Love is at 74.08% and McAdams is at 25.92%
  • Sanpete County, which gave Love 77.71% of the vote and McAdams 22.29%
  • Juab County where Love has 79.23% and McAdams gets 20.77%

There have been 297,588 votes cast in Salt Lake County congressional races so far:

  • 69,164 in CD2 (23.24%)
  • 62,643 in CD3 (21.05%)
  • 165,781 in CD4 (55.71%)

Utah County recorded 85,244 votes so far in two congressional races:

  • 70,642 in CD3 (82.87%)
  • 14,602 in CD4 (17.13%)

There are 116,093 uncounted votes in Salt Lake County and 88,910 outstanding ballots in Utah County. The number of outstanding ballots in Sanpete and Juab county is so small it should not affect the final outcome.

Using those percentages as a baseline, and assuming that current trends hold May projects:

  • There are 64,673 votes remaining in the CD4 portion of Salt Lake County.
    • McAdams would get 35,538
    • Love gets 29,135
  • There are 15,230 potential votes in the CD4 portion of Utah County
    • Love would get 11,283
    • McAdams gets 3,947

 

Using those projections, May calculates McAdams potentially winning by a final margin of 4,481 votes.

 

 

McAdams

Love

Current

95,942

90,528

Salt Lake

35,538

29,135

Utah

3,947

11,283
Projected total

135,427

130,946
 

50.84%

49.16%

 

Now, all of this is simply speculative. The final margin is close enough that a slight surge in votes one way or the other could tip the numbers in either direction.

Salt Lake County will update their vote totals daily, while Utah County will begin updating numbers on Friday.