This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A pair of polls show just how unusual Utah is in this unusual presidential race, though one finding is all-too familiar: The Republican is expected to carry the state.
The Washington Post and SurveyMonkey conducted a 50-state poll, using online surveys, that found GOP nominee Donald Trump up by 7 percentage points in Utah over his Democratic foe, Hillary Clinton, 34 percent to 27 percent, with Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson coming in at a competitive 23 percent.
Those numbers are not far from a Dan Jones & Associates July poll, conducted for UtahPolicy.com, in which Trump logged 37 percent to Clinton's 25 percent.
But the value of The Post's poll is in the easy comparison to other states, and, in more than one way, Utah is an anomaly.
Utah is the anti-Trump state Trump is expected to win:
The survey had Trump ahead in 22 states, including the battlegrounds of Ohio and Iowa, and in none of those states does the Republican have lower marks than in Utah. At just 34 percent, Trump has similar polling numbers in New Jersey, Connecticut and New Hampshire, states where Clinton has a definitive advantage.
Two other pieces of information show how uneasy the electorate is with Trump. Utah led the massive survey of more than 74,000 registered voters in the number of respondents who said they had no opinion, at 11 percent. And Johnson captured his second best showing in Utah, behind only New Mexico, the state he led for two terms as a Republican governor. There he registered at 25 percent.
The survey included 722 Utahns and has no margin of error, because it is not a standard random sample poll. Instead, SurveyMonkey tagged it at the end of other surveys conducted for other groups, then weighted it using Census Bureau benchmarks for registered voters.
It also didn't include conservative independent candidate Evan McMullin, the Mormon and Utah native who is offering himself as an alternative to Trump. Both Johnson and McMullin are headquartering their races in Salt Lake City. While Johnson's name will appear on every state's ballot, McMullin is still working to get on as many ballots as possible. So far, he'll be an option in nine states, including Utah, where he was born.
Trump has acknowledged that he has a "tremendous problem" in Utah, where members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints view him skeptically.
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It will be hard for Clinton to capitalize on Trump's weakness in Utah • Clinton netted 27 percent of the respondents' support, a dismal number indicative of how unpopular she is here. She performed worse in only four other states — Oklahoma (26 percent), North Dakota (26), Idaho (25) and Wyoming (21). Still, the former secretary of state has made modest attempts in the Beehive State. She opened an office here, wrote a Mormon-friendly opinion piece for the LDS Church-owned Deseret News, and her campaign sent a mailer to some voters questioning Trump's fitness for office.
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Utah's 4th Congressional District may be a bright spot for Clinton • Another poll released Monday, this one by Dan Jones for UtahPolicy.com, shows Clinton in a statistical tie in Utah's 4th District, a seat now held by first-term Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah.
With a margin of error of nearly 7 percentage points, Clinton holds a 30 percent to 28 percent edge.
This district contains a big chunk of western and central Salt Lake County, though only a tiny sliver of the liberal bastion of Salt Lake City, which is mostly in the 2nd District.
Trump holds leads ranging from 11 percentage points to 19 in Utah's three other congressional districts.
Love has yet to endorse Trump and instead has called the candidates "subpar," while Owens has said he will vote for Clinton but has refused to engage in any talk about the presidential race. His campaign spokesman, Taylor Morgan, maintained that stance, saying only: "As always, Doug's focused on his race, not national politics."
"None of the down-ballot candidates are rushing out to get the presidential endorsement, I don't think on either side," said Dave Hansen, Love's campaign strategist. "It is a very strange year."
Though he noted that an earlier release from this same Dan Jones poll, which was conducted July 18 to Aug. 4, showed Love leading by 13 percentage points. Hansen said that indicates voters are not tying Trump to the freshman Republican congresswoman.
"That is very good," he said.
Twitter: @mattcanham