This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
Recent polls showing Utah may be up for grabs in the presidential race seem to have infused a new sense of enthusiasm in the campaigns trying to deny Donald Trump a victory in the Beehive State.
Hillary Clinton supporters packed her Utah office Thursday night, with at least 60 people eating pizza and calling likely Clinton supporters to remind them that their mail-in ballots should be arriving any day and to encourage them to mail them.
"I don't think any of us predicted, in a state like Utah, that hasn't voted for a Democrat since '64, that we'd be feeling the excitement we are now and the opportunity we are now," said Salt Lake County Councilwoman Jenny Wilson, a high-profile Clinton supporter in Utah.
Meanwhile, independent conservative candidate Evan McMullin has been speaking to packed houses in recent days. On Thursday night, several hundred were on hand for a standing-room-only town hall in Syracuse. On Wednesday, The Logan Herald-Journal reported that hundreds were on hand for a similar event.
McMullin travels to St. George on Saturday, amid polling that shows him very much in the thick of a three-way race with Trump and Clinton.
A Monmouth University poll released Thursday showed Trump leading with 34 percent, followed by Clinton with 28 percent and McMullin with 20 percent, less than three weeks ahead of the election.
Trump's Utah director did not return a Salt Lake Tribune call Thursday that sought to inquire about what the Republican nominee's local supporters were doing.
The Clinton phone bank event brought out some unlikely supporters, like Barbara Cookie Allred, a one-time Democrat who was turned off by Bill Clinton's moral escapades but now, after voting Republican in the previous four elections, is campaigning for Hillary Clinton — and not just because of the revelations last week of video of Trump making lewd comments and boasting of sexually aggressive and abusive behavior against women.
"I'm not a Democrat, but I really support Hillary Clinton," Allred said. "I was against Trump before last Friday's videos, but even more so now. I don't trust him. I don't think he's prepared. He doesn't understand the process of government. And mostly I think he's going to put us into World War III. I don't trust him with his finger on the magic button."
Karen DelPriore met Clinton briefly when she worked at the student paper at the University of Rochester and Clinton gave a speech at the school the day after the U.S. Senate voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq. Clinton led an eloquent discussion of why she voted for the military action, she said, and talked about the need to give bipartisan support to the president.
DelPriore said she is concerned about what her children might learn from watching Trump as president. "It makes me sick," she said.
Jeff Swift, the policy director for the group LDS Dems, which helped organize the phone bank, said this election feels different now.
"This time is different because there's a chance the Democrat can win. There's a real legitimate chance, and the comparison for Mormons is so stark. One side is just so antithetical to everything that Mormons stand for," Swift said. "The excitement is growing. It's always a lot more exciting to work for somebody who has a chance."
Twitter: @RobertGehrke